Purple Chaos
by Silvershadow471
Summary: I'm just a normal middle schooler until my laptop electrocutes me, we're kicked out of our classroom, and Eggman destroys half of my school. I think nothing else can go wrong. Am I right? Ha ha! Ha...
1. Prologue

**Hey! Name's Silvershadow471, or just Silvershadow. I know what you might be thinking: this is just another fanfic filled with OCs where the author just puts herself in the game as a fangirl. Hehe, wrong! You'd also be wrong if you thought this was just another fic where the Sonic crew show up in the real world and are helped by a fangirl. Yes, seven of the eight main characters are OCs. Yes, their personalities are based after people I know. This isn't from my point of view, though; therefore, I don't put myself in the Sonic games. While I'd appreciate it if everyone read this, not everyone would, so you _shouldn't _read this if:  
1) You don't want to read about non-canon characters, or OCs, on an adventure with our favorite blue hedgehog  
2) You don't want to read a Sonic fanfic set in the real world  
3) These first few chapter aren't too good. I know that, and I will rewrite them when this is finished. If you don't want to give the rest of the story a chance if the first chapter isn't absolutely amazing, then this isn't the best fanfiction for you.  
4) You don't want to read a Sonic fanfic  
Even if you don't like this, please review and tell me _why_ you don't like this! If you don't, well, I'll never know and there will be more fanfics that you don't like clogging up the Internet.**

**All further notes will be at the bottom of each chapter.  
Sonic and Co. belong to SEGA. Walmart, games, brand names, etc. also belong to their respected owners. Krystal the Hedgehog, Athena the Tigress, Aero the Wolf, Caillech the Cat, Hestia the Echidna, Luna the Raven, Sora the Otter and Abigail (come in later), and other non-SEGA characters belong to me. Just to put that out there. Thank you for reading this boring stuff, and enjoy the story!**

I was staring at the debris from the explosion in horror. "No…" I whispered, sinking to my knees on the charred grass. "No, it can't be real. It just can't. They're only games! They're not real!"

* * *

But I am getting ahead of myself. When things started to go wrong was the day I got my ring. It was two days ago, on a Saturday. My brother was playing Sonic 3 & Knuckles, while I took my ring out of the Walmart bag.

It was a gold band with a purple gem at the center. On each side there were tiny, white crystals, embedded in the gold. I knew it was fake, because it was $8.99, but it was pretty. I slipped it on my middle finger, but it was still too big. I put a smaller gold band with seven crystals above my new ring. They fit fine.

I watched the gem sparkle. "Can I play now?"

"No!"

"Rrrrr…" I got up to get my laptop, seeing as I'll have to wait a while.

"Jump, Sonic, jump! Gah!" he yelled as Sonic fell in a pit. He threw the controller on the couch, fell face-first into the cushions, and screamed, "I lost!" After replaying the level, Sonic was starting to fight Eggman (Dr Robotnik then) when I came in with my netbook.

I pressed the power button on my laptop.

"Ow!"

My laptop shocked the tip of my middle finger on my left hand. And not your average friction shock. It hurt like hell!

At that same moment, there was a static sound on the TV. I looked up and the game was frozen.

_That's weird,_ I thought. _Old games don't usually freeze like this._ Then I noticed that Robotnik was missing from the game. _Weird..._

"Can you fix this?" my brother asked me hopefully.

"On a game like this, no. You're going to have to turn it off."

"Aww…"

* * *

Nothing happened again until two days later, on Monday. Today.

We were getting ready for Social Studies. I was already at my desk, twisting my two rings. Looking around the classroom, I saw my friends at their desks. Apparently, either the class was starting late or my friends and I were early. I decided to go with the former.

Across from me was Anna. She is always off in her world of mythology and cats.

Next to her was Ali. She likes to draw and ride horses. A lot.

A little farther away was Sierra. She is always writing or torturing with Lily.

Lily was a few tables away from Sierra. Lily, when not torturing others, is either drawing, listening to music, or texting friends.

Across from her was Haylie. The future drummer of a punk band, she worships the gods of Rock, Music, Ponies, Puppies, and Randomness.

Cara came in, walking to her desk with a red binder, folder, and book. She can be quiet while reading, but she's also crazy and competes in swimming tournaments, like the dolphin she secretly is.

And then there's me. I can be quiet in my world, but annoy me enough, and I can easily break your nose. I'm also the youngest and most mature.

We all get along, though. No one really knows how or why. Or really cares.

Now the crazy part. About halfway through the class, I thought I saw a blue blur. My head shot up. Now I thought I heard something, too! _Too many video games,_ I thought, laying my head on my desk. But then someone yelled, "Quick! Everyone out!"

Everyone, including our teacher, stood up, looking around. Then, as if by magic, we were _outside_ of our classroom. We were looking in through our windows, since it was a ground level room. Haylie came up next to me, saying, "What's going on?"

"I don't know, Haylie."

There was another flash of blue, this time inside the classroom. It came out the window, shattering it upon contact, and passed us. I could feel it go by, and I could swear I saw a glint of green and a white grin. _No_, I thought, watching where it disappeared with a cocky smile.

That's when our classroom blew up.

**Note: I know it doesn't sound much like a Sonic fanfic. It's probably pretty predictable, though. This was more of a prologue (well, yeah, chapter name). It'll sound more Sonic-y when the other characters come in. And if you haven't noticed, it's present-time now. This is my first fanfic, too. Maybe even my first story, since I don't write much. Can't remember. I'm kind of worried about the reviews, but please take the time to! I hoped you enjoyed it!**

**~Silvershadow471**


	2. The Hero Arrives

I was on the ground, almost crying. "They're only games… Not real, only games…" I had always thought about how cool it would be if video games were real. But in my daydreams, I was the hero, or friends with the hero, or something! Just never the target or the victim…

Around me, kids and teachers were coming outside. As soon as they saw the rubble, everyone was either crying, screaming, or just looking surprised. I saw my brother with his class coming toward our group. My teacher was instantly bombarded with questions from everyone.

"How did this happen?"

"How did you know to get out?"

"Is everyone alright?"

Sheesh, almost as bad as the media.

Before the questions were answered, there was a loud roar from the sky. The younger kids covered their ears while the rest of us looked up.

There was a bird, high in the sky. After watching it for a while, I could make out reddish wings with feathers sticking out. I thought it looked like the Egg Wyvern from Sonic '06, but, of course, it's not real. _A bird couldn't fly with wings like that, _I thought anyway. Then my eyes widened.

"Holy crap, that thing's coming toward us!"

We all ran down the hill, away from our school. As the robo-bird (now seeing it was metallic) landed where we were a few seconds ago, there was a dull _thud_ and a huge gust of wind that knocked most of the younger kids over. I couldn't help but laugh a bit.

The cockpit of the robot opened and a man stood up. He looked about forty, wearing dark glasses, a red jacket with gold buttons, and skinny, black pants with matching black shoes that really didn't look good on him. Even with better pants, he would still just be a six foot obese man with a bald head, but all the hair he lacked he made up for with a very bushy mustache.

"Good afternoon, children," When he spoke, his voice was, strangely, slightly melodic. "My name is Dr. Eggman, and one of you-" He stopped as over one hundred people, including myself, started laughing.

"You've got to be joking!"

"He's not real!"

"He's a video game character!"

"C'mon, old man! We're not stupid!" The kid that shouted that picked up a stick and tossed it. His aim was way off and missed its target, but more of the younger kids started giggling.

There was another roar from the machine that shut everyone up. Eggman smiled as the laughter died out. "As I was saying, one of you has stolen my Chaos Emerald, and I intend to get it back. Now who has it?"

No one said anything.

"Let me rephrase the statement," he said, starting to get annoyed. "If the thief doesn't give it back to me, I will crush you like I did to your classroom and take the Emerald from your dead bodies!"

Now people were scared. Some kids, young and old, started crying again. One of the teachers stepped up and was about to say something, but never got the chance to. I could feel and almost see the blue blur return.

"I'm afraid I can't let you do that, Eggman."

Then… I don't really know what happened next. It went from being a blue blur on the ground to a gold streak in the sky. I saw Eggman's face and I had to laugh. I knew what was going to happen next.

He was looking at the gold streak and whispered, "Oh, crap." The streak moved down toward the robot bird so fast that all we could see was a twitch in the sky, a golden blur on the ground, and an explosion. Eggman, in his Hover Egg thing, was blown off towards the horizon, yelling and swearing. "So close! I was so close!"

We were all cheering and looking at the dark dust cloud. The parts of the bird were scattered around it, on the charred grass; some bits were still falling the ground. Cara came up to me and asked, "Was this a good thing?" My friends know I'm reliable in strange situations.

"If it was what I think it was, it was a great thing."

I returned my attention to the smoke as a shiny silhouette appeared in it. We could start to see it clearer as the figure walked toward us. When it stepped out of the smoke, we could finally see the blur clearly. He was about 3' 3" and was golden and spiky. When he looked at me, I saw his bright, red eyes and the smile of a prankster. I squealed and smiled with him when I figured out that my dreams came true. There was only one word I could say right now in my joy.

"Sonic…"

**Now it's sounding more like a Sonic fanfic, right? I like how this chapter came out. And these might take a while to be posted and updated. I'm not the best or fastest typer, and when I do, it's in between school, homework, Tae Kwon Do, and other various activities. I hope you enjoyed it, though!**

**~Silvershadow471**


	3. Introducing the Miracles

There we were, a mob of 200 kids and fifteen teachers or so, on a hill, in front of a crumbled classroom, staring at a golden, anthropomorphic hedgehog. And the parents and buses would be coming soon. But we didn't care.

Most people were smiling at Sonic, either with disbelief or joy. One little kid cried, "Sonic!" and ran up to hug him.

Sonic looked surprised at first, with his hands in the air. But then he laughed and knelt down, putting his hands on the kid's shoulders. "You people seem to know me around here." His voice had a carefree tone to it.

_Like in the games,_ I thought.

The kid nodded and said, "You my favorite kitty ever!" Sonic smiled while the rest of us laughed.

"Here," he said, holding out his hand. "A gift for my biggest fan." In it materialized a small gold ring. The kid gasped and took the ring. Putting it on her finger, she smiled as wide as she could and hugged the "kitty" again.

Sonic walked the kid over to the kindergarten teacher. She was smiling at the hedgehog, saying, "How can we ever repay you?"

Sonic shook his head. "I do this all the time. Don't worry about it. But," he added, turning around to face us. "I have a Chaos Emerald to give back to the person I borrowed it from."

Everyone gasped as the seven jewels appeared, circling his head. Each one about five inches tall, they glittered with power; each one equal, but also so different. Even though they are called emeralds, only the green one looked to be a royal emerald. Deep in color, it had power in both evil and good.

The red jewel looked like a ruby, deep in an evil blood red. It was the one that most people gave into temptation for.

The sapphire was an ocean blue color. This Emerald harnessed and could control the forces of nature best, for both good and evil.

The diamond, sometimes referred to as the strongest one, was neither clear nor cloudy. It glimmered with more power than the others, but it's locked away, becoming the hardest emerald to use for a specific cause.

The yellow and aqua Emeralds seemed to be a little closer together than the others. They had to be emeralds, even though they looked like aquamarine and citrine gems, but those gems wouldn't be strong enough to be the size that they were. They were kind of like the Gemini twins; not the strongest of the gems, but they were solely for helpful and good purposes. Any evil uses of them usually backfired.

The last gem was a deep amethyst. It glittered, showing the colors of the other Emeralds, being the least trusted jewel; it knew the others' secrets. An evil gem, it could betray a pure-hearted user without any warning. I thought it looked familiar.

After a few seconds, it hit me. I quickly looked down at my left hand and cried out. The purple centerpiece was missing.

Sonic had come up to me while I was looking at my hand. "I was the thief Eggman was talking about?" I asked slowly, looking at the hedgehog's ruby eyes, worried.

He smiled a reassuring smile. "No, you weren't. Just a person in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong article of jewelry that just happened to have one of the most powerful and dangerous objects of all time." I smiled back at him.

"So I'm lucky that you were here in time?"

"Bingo!" he said, reaching up and grabbing the purple Chaos Emerald as it passed above his nose. "And you probably want this back, right?"

I swear my eyes sparkled. "You don't need it?"

"Nah. If I need it, I can come get it," he said in a joking tone. "Until then, you can get your money's worth out of it." Sonic held it out to me.

"Thank you." I reached out to take it.

As soon as I touched it, though, there was a shock under my hand. Sonic's eyes widened and he gasped. Then his eyelids closed. He fell to the ground with the Emeralds in a circle around him, his fur fading to blue as the Chaos Emerald rolled out of his hand.

"Sonic!"

I kneeled down next to him, trying to shake the hedgehog awake. _A good daydream shouldn't become a nightmare (Daymare? Don't know)!_ Then I remembered I was surrounded by people.

"Haylie, help me get him inside. Ali and Lily, get the Emeralds."

I held him under his arms, while Haylie had his feet. He only weight eighty pounds or so, so we got him inside quickly. We brought him to my brother's classroom, since our's was destroyed. Anna had the door, while Ali and Lily followed with the Emeralds.

We had lain Sonic on one of the tables by an open window when Sierra and Cara came in with Anna. But no matter how many friends were with me, a thought kept nagging me.

_Did I do this?_

**Oooo… Suspense. Sorry, not a very progressive chapter. Oh well, better than nothing, right? Next chapter up soon!**

**~Silvershadow471**


	4. Explanations

Sierra came back into the classroom we were in. "She said school ended early, but we could stay in here."

My friends and I were in my brother's classroom. Sonic seemed to be fine on the table. He was gently snoring every now and then, so we didn't think he was too bad.

The school closed for the rest of the week. It was only about 1:30, but the buses don't come until three. Most of the kids were in the gym, but the seven of us stayed with the hedgehog.

I was in the corner, examining the purple Chaos Emerald, wondering how a five inch emerald could look like a one centimeter gem on a size nine ring. I still haven't come up with a possible answer, except for Haylie's suggestion. "Magic!"

Anna found a book and was lying on the floor, reading. Cara and Lily were listening to their iPods, looking at the emeralds like I was. Lily had the aqua emerald, while Cara was holding the blue one. She was moving it through the air like a dolphin, singing, "Swimmy, swimmy, swimmy, swimmy, swimmy…" Sometimes, we think she's crazy. But, then again, we're all crazy in our own way. We all agreed I would be the one to escape the insane asylum, though, so I'm not objecting.

Haylie, Sierra, and Ali were watching the police and the fire department try to understand what happened to our classroom from the window.

"Ha ha. They're clueless," said Sierra, laughing at the police. Ali looked confused.

"Well, what would you say if someone told you a fictional character destroyed their house?"

"I would laugh and tell them to get a life."

"That's my point."

Haylie then came into the conversation. "Who is Eggman, anyway?" she asked.

Ali shook her head. "I don't know. Do you Sierra?"

She shook her head. "I only know he's from a video game. But I do know who to ask."

The red-haired girl walked over to where I was sitting and started poking me.

"What?" I said, now aware of five pairs of eyes watching me. Anna was still reading.

Sierra repeated Haylie's question. "Who's Eggman and what game is he from?"

I sighed. "Anna, you might want to listen, too." When she looked up, I continued.

"His real name is Dr. Ivo Robotnik. He has a strange obsession over eggs, naming all his robots and machines 'Egg something'. With an IQ of 300, he can build machines in no time, occasionally building air fleets with his robots. He is a fictional video game character, but now, I don't know how 'fictitious' he is now. As for the video game he's in, he was created for the first Sonic the Hedgehog game in has been in almost every game in the series since."

The room was quiet for a while, until Lily said, "This guy has no social life."

I let out a small laugh. Ali, surprised, asked me, "And how do you know all this?"

I shrugged. "I guess I like video games too much."

"Can you tell us about our blue friend over there?" Cara asked, pointing to Sonic.

"Sure. Sonic the Hedgehog is a fifteen-year-old, anthropomorphic, blue-furred, green-eyed, African pygmy hedgehog. He can move at sonic speeds and uses his speed to travel the worlds and fight evil, including Eggman. He is 3'3" tall and weighs seventy-seven pounds. Video game wise, his personality is based after Bill Clinton, his blue color is like SEGA's logo. I don't know where this came from, but his shoes are based after Michael Jackson's and the red-and-white coloring is based after Santa Claus. I think it is because he was born on Christmas Island. He loves to travel and explore. His favorite food is chili dogs. Favorite music is rock music. He is free-spirited and believes in close friendships, but doesn't like settling down in one place for too long. As you saw earlier, he is one of the creatures that can harness the power of the Chaos Emeralds and go into his super form. And… I think that's it."

"I'm surprised, kid."

We all tuned to see Sonic, awake and sitting up against the wall. "You humans here seem to know a lot about us here. How is that?"

I didn't say anything, but left to go to my brother's locker. When I came back, I had his DSi with me. I turned it on and gave it to the hedgehog.

You could hear "Sonic Rush!" from the DSi. Cara laughed as Sonic's ears drooped.

"Oh. That's how," he said, not at all enthusiastic.

He turned off the system and put it down on the table. "Who came up with the games?"

I thought for a second. "Let's see… Yuji Naka, Hi-"

"Little Yuji?!" Sonic cried, smiling. "Now I know what this is about!"

"What?" we all asked.

"Okay. This world is the world that is parallel to mine. This world has humans and wisdom, technology and such. But mine is populated with creatures like me. I think you called us 'anthropomorphic animals,' right?" I nodded. "Sometimes, we travel between the worlds. That's how I know Yuji. When I came here last, he was a child I was friends with."

"But how could people not realize you were a blue hedgehog on two legs?" Anna asked from her spot on the floor.

"I was in my human form." We all stared at the hedgehog.

Ali started a question. "What's-"

Sonic held up his hand, silencing her. "Every human and mobian has an opposite form. Humans' opposite form is of their mobian self, and vice versa. And-" he said as Sierra opened her mouth. "A mobian is a creature like me. All mobians have their own special ability, or power. With Chaos Energy, you can switch between the two forms. Chaos Energy is-"

"Energy from the Chaos Emeralds, right?" Anna asked.

Sonic looked down at her. "Correct! You humans know a lot more than you should. What's your name?"

"Anna."

That one word made Sonic's blue and tan face turn pale. He asked the rest of us for our names.

"Cara."

"Lily!"

"Alexis, but everyone calls me Ali."

"Mahayla."

"I'm-"

"But don't call me Mahayla! I'm Haylie!"

"…I'm Sierra."

"And I'm-"

The hedgehog stopped me. "And you're the leader of the prophecy."

I was confused now, and slightly scared. "What?"

Sonic looked grim. "'Seven of the strongest heroes, human at birth, mobian at heart, shall stop the evil and save the two worlds, or join the forces to destroy it.' That is the World's End Prophecy from my world, Mobius. It talks of you seven." He jumped off the table and walked over to each of us in turn.

"Anna, the Poet of Nature."

"Cara, Ruler of Water."

"Lily, Warrior Master."

"Haylie, Rainbow Jumper of the Wind."

"Ali, Mistress of the Flame."

"Sierra, Sorceress of Life."

"And you," he said, stopping in front of me. "You're the leader of the group, the Conqueror of the Mind.

"Will you take on this task, O Heroes, to save both our worlds and the fate of all creatures?" he asked us in a humble tone, looking uneasy.

"Sure, what the heck. Sounds fun. When can we leave?" Lily asked, getting up and stretching.

Sonic looked surprised. "This task will take many days, possibly years, and be extremely hard. You're not even ready and you want to leave now?!"

"…Yeah, why?"

The mobian smiled. "I like your style! This might not be as slow and boring as I thought."

Ali laughed, finally out of her little trance. "Ha ha, Haylie. You're called Rainbow Jumper."

Haylie sighed. "Apparently."

I smiled, too. "So, Sonic, how did we get our titles?"

"They're the titles of your mobian forms. You're going to have to be in them to do the quest."

Lily squealed. "So we get super powers?"

"We call them 'abilities'."

"…So we get super powers?"

Sonic laughed.

"Bingo!"

**Wow, I didn't expect this to be 1,400 words long or so. A lot of explaining going on here. I'm kind of making this up as I go along, too. All my OC's are based after me and my friends, since I don't like thinking of characters, so I can actually tell you almost everything about Sonic. I didn't have to look up my little explanation about our blue friend, either. It was all from memory. Just to prove to someone who thinks I've never even picked up a controller. And if any of you start sending me messages saying, "Get a life," or something, I already know that. Don't remind me, please. Please review and I hope you enjoyed it! The us-turning-into-animals-and-getting-super-powers (according to Lily) is in the next chapter. Thanks!**

**~Silvershadow471**


	5. Transformations

Sonic had the emeralds lined up on a table. Lily and Ali were happily hopping up and down together. Cara, though, was skeptical.

"How is it physically and scientifically possible to turn into a colorful, magical animal?" she asked.

The colorful, magical hedgehog just smiled. "That one word you said. 'Magical'."

"Hey, Sonic," I asked while walking over to the group. "Why were you so freaked out that we were the ones from that prophecy? Is there something you're not telling us?"

When Sonic looked at me, I thought I saw a trace of guilt flicker across his face. "The original prophecy said the chosen ones needed a leader completely dedicated to them. I thought I would have to be humble and formal, which I hate, to a bunch of annoying brats. I also forgot the chosen ones were all females. But I think you girls will be okay!"

"That's it?"

"Yes."

I didn't know if he was telling the truth or not, but I let it slide. _Bad explanation, Sonic._

Lily broke in, impatient."Can I get my powers now?"

"Sure, but there are a few things you need to know first." We all gathered in front of the table. Sonic jumped behind it and turned to face us.

"First off, I have only given the Emeralds' power to other mobians, never humans. It shouldn't be too different, though.

"Second, most mobians are about my height, so everything will probably look bigger."

Lily sighed and muttered, "I'm short enough already…"

The hedgehog smiled. "Third, even though you know what most of your abilities will be already, your forms could be quite surprising. You also won't be able to use your abilities to their full power yet, either.

"Lastly, the Chaos Emerald you use for this will be your Emerald. It's the one that will work best for you.

"But," he said, looking at each of us in turn. "As soon as you're in your new form, the emerald will lose the last of its power and scatter to somewhere to recuperate. We'll have to get them again. Just another normal day! So!" He clapped his hands together, smiling as always. "Who wants to go first? Rainbow Jumper?"

"Yes?" said Haylie, but then she jumped around, annoyed. "Damn it!"

Sonic looked at Ali, who was smiling. She simply said, "Haylie doesn't like being called that because she doesn't like it but actually answers to it and it annoys her."

Haylie stopped jumping. "Can't I be called Knight of the Wind instead?"

He smiled, apologetically this time. "That's one of my titles. Two living mobians can't have the same title. Sorry. What about Dame of the Wind, though?"

"Yes! Anything but Rainbow Jumper!"

"Okay, then." There was a flash of light as Sonic changed into his super form. Everyone backed up, but the hedgehog motioned for Haylie to stay next to the table. "Choose your Chaos Emerald, Rain-, no, Dame of the Wind."

Haylie took the silver Emerald. Sonic told us that, with our chosen Emerald, to let it float in front of us. Haylie's Emerald just started levitating at her eye level as soon as she let go. The gold hedgehog held his hands out toward the floating diamond and closed his ruby eyes. When his hands started shining from the Chaos Energy being transferred, the Emerald glowed and the whole room filled with a white light. I looked away until the light died down. When I looked back, I noticed the Emerald was gone, like Sonic said. But then I noticed Haylie and gasped.

Standing where Haylie used to be was three foot wolf. She had black fur with purple tints. Her tail, though, was long and fluffy, with long, purple streaks. She had a ragged purple t-shirt and baggy, black jeans on, matching her fur. Her hands were black with short claws on her fingers. Her shoes were black, too, with a purple streak on the outer side of each. Her face and ears were a sleek and shiny black that almost looked windblown. She had eyes that were wide and alert, with violet irises. She didn't look vicious, but didn't look cuddly, either. _Like the wind,_ I thought.

Anna looked kind of scared. "Haylie? Are you alright?" she asked, walking slowly up to the wolf.

"Okay, Anna?" she said, turning to face us, bouncing. Her voice was still the same. "I feel great! It's like I'm free and can run forever without rest! It's awesome!"

Sonic laughed. "That's your ability over the wind. Your endurance with it won't be too great now, but with training, forever isn't impossible!"

Ali was jumping with her arm in the air. "Oh! Can I go next?"

"Go ahead. Choose your Emerald," he said, motioning towards the emeralds on the table.

Picking up the red Chaos Emerald, the same thing happened again, only with a red light this time. After the jewel disappeared, I could see Ali as a mobian echidna.

She was an orange-red color with peach skin. Her hair- or quills, rather- were brought together in a low ponytail with a deep red ring. Two long quills had escaped and were on either side of her face. She had the usual black button echidna nose and gold-colored eyes. She wore a white tank top and a light tan skirt with a red lining. On her hands were thin, white, fingerless gloves reaching her forearms. Ali's shoes were actually dark colored sandals. Her tail was short and the same color as her fur. She was staring at it in astonishment.

"What am I, anyway?" she asked

I tried to stop a laugh. Epic failure. "You're an echidna, Ali!"

"An echidna, hm?" our golden hedgehog friend said, while Ali looked at him in disgust. "I've only known two echidnas, but they were both strong and noble. Well, maybe not Knuckles."

"That's kinda cool, though," Anna said, joining the conversation. "A pyrokinetic echidna. Lucky you! May I go next?"

She picked up the green Emerald, saying, "If I'm a nature figure, why not take a leaf-green gem?"

When the green light faded, I looked at Anna and smiled, sighing as she looked at herself. Our Poet of Nature was a cat. If I had a million guesses, I wouldn't have guessed that. Understand sarcasm, people?

Anna walked over to a mirror and looked at her lithe new form. She was tall for a mobian, standing at about 3'6". She had white fur with specks of brown in it. Her white hair and tail were long and sleek. Her tail had a brown tip. One of her ears was brown, with a bit of green near her right eye. Those large, emerald green cat eyes. She wore only a long, dress-like forest green tunic. No footwear covered her feet, which were like cat paws, only longer, like human feet. Anna seemed to like how she looked. She smiled as she said, "I look like a goddess. Maybe I am the fourth child of Loki!"

Haylie came up and hugged the new mobian. "Yay Anna! You're a kitty!" The wolf and the cat walked over to where the echidna was. Cara quickly ran up in front of Sonic.

She grabbed the blue Emerald, jumping. "Me, me, me, me, me!" Sonic just laughed.

I heard Cara sigh and looked at her new form. She wasn't a dolphin, which made me happy. How would a dolphin get around on land? But then I realized she was a light blue otter.

She fur was very thick and streamlined, almost looking like skin. She had short, round ears and short hair. She wore a long, single-strap blue dress and sandals. Her muzzle was very short, making her ocean blue eyes stand out. Her tail was of medium length and had a dark blue tip. She had white gloves on, and she was looking at them with eyes of hate. "I'm a stupid sea otter! They don't swim; only float! And I'm supposed to have water powers!" She threw her arm up towards the sink on the wall. "Is it like I can control water as an otter?"

As she said this, her hand flashed blue, breaking the water pipe. There was a burst of water from the sink, knocking Haylie over and drenching the wolf.

"I guess an otter can control water," Cara said slowly, laughing in embarrassment.

"Not controlling it, yet," Sonic corrected her. "Only using it for now. Lily, you're up!"

"Awesome!"

After the yellow glow from the Emerald disappeared, I heard something fly through the air, and only just moved out of the way. Stuck in the wall I was leaning on a second before was a shiny shuriken. "Lily!"

Her hands, covered in fingerless gloves that reached her forearms, tried to hide her laughing feline face. After the attempt failed, we started laughing with the tigress.

Her black fingers had long, silver claws on them. Her fur was also black, with shimmering silver stripes. Her eyes were red, which didn't fit her figure but definitely fit her personality. She wore a magenta tank top and blue denim jeans. Her shoes were a type of black designer's shoes. Her ears and long tail had even longer fur on them. Where she got the weapon from, I don't know. _Maybe she's like those Chinese karate masters, where weapons appear in a puff of smoke,_ I though, remembering a movie I saw once.

Lily was happy, though. "This is awesome! I can go 'Hi-yah!' and kill someone!"

"Right, Lily," Ali said. She started to stand up, but a black and purple wolf flew into her after being thrown like a projectile. They were in a pile on the floor while Lily smiled.

"Sierra," I said turning to face her. "You've been kinda quiet. What's wrong?"

She was giggling at Haylie. "I like this whole idea and everything, but I play video games like you." She sighed and turned toward me. "This is just too much to comprehend at one time. I thought they were only games. Next thing you know, Link will fall through the ceiling, telling us that Ganondorf destroyed Chicago or something." Her expression got a little more relaxed. "But let's see what the Sorceress of Life is like anyway." She casually went up to the two Chaos Emeralds that were left and picked up the aqua one.

When the light faded, a dark black raven was Sierra's new mobian form. All her feathers, her shirt, pants, shoes, beak, and her feathered tail were black. Her eyes, like Haylie's, were violet. Her figure, even though she was a bird, was very lithe, with feathers like fur. Her arms were arms with feathers going down them. She couldn't fly, but that's where magic comes in. She was all black, except for her jewelry. She had a black choker around her neck, the centerpiece being a glowing opal shaped like a crescent moon. She didn't wear gloves, but she had two glowing opal bracelets, floating an inch or so around each of her wrists.

Sierra smiled. "I can get used to magic, just like Bellatrix! It's like I can go 'Crucio!'" She threw her arm out as she said this. Her hand glowed the same silvery-white as her opal jewelry for a second, and then stopped as she brought her hands together over her mouth, both horrified and thrilled.

Haylie the Wolf was sprawled out on the floor again, this time twitching and screaming in agony. "Why me..." she muttered every now and then.

"Sierra," Ali said in a teasing tone. "It's not nice to magically torture friends."

"I didn't know that would work though!" came the reply.

Sonic just looked at me. "You don't want to know," I said, smiling. "Now it's my turn!"

I was excited and nervous at the same time when I picked up my purple Chaos Emerald. When it started levitating, I felt a shock from the energy. My eyes widened when I realized that the Emerald on my ring was the reason I got electrocuted when I touched my laptop. Then I relaxed and thought, _Wow, it took that long for me to figure it out._

I waited for something to happen, but I just felt my skin prickle when the light filled the room. Then it stopped when I felt the Emerald disappear. _Felt?_

I saw Sonic had returned to his original cobalt color. But then I asked myself, _Why is Sonic as tall as me?_

I looked down at myself and smiled. My mobian form had short white fur. I was wearing a light blue tank top and a cyan-colored skirt. I liked cyan. On my feet were black shoes with a turquoise stripe down the center. I turned to look at my tail, which is kind of awkward. It was short, so I thought I was a hedgehog. Hedgehogs were usually famous mobians, so that's a good sign for me.

Then I realized Sonic was staring at me with a look of disbelief on his face. Wondering what was wrong, I went over to the mirror, looking at my gloves while I walked. They were short, white gloves with a thin cyan band around the bottom of them, on my wrist. Then my eyes widened as I saw the circular cyan insignia on each of the palms.

Turning towards the mirror, I saw a white figure with blue eyes. But I was surprised by my quills.

They fell a little below my shoulders, but five stood up. Two went off to the side, one went straight up, and the other two were in between the others, with my small, triangular ears.

"Silver…" I whispered, then more loudly. "How can I look like Silver? He's a hedgehog and I'm a-"

"Hedgehog," Sonic said."I don't know how you two look alike, but we should get going, now that you all are mobians."

"But," he continued, turning towards all of us. "All other mobians will know you by your names, so you each need an alias."

"Can I be Tré Cool?" Haylie yelled.

"No," Sierra said. "But I'm going to be Luna."

"Cara is Swimmy!" Ali said, pointing to the otter. She was about to reply, but then decided not to bother.

"Fine, I'm Swimmy. But I want to be called Sora, too. Swimmy sounds dumb."

"Anna," I asked while on the topic of names. "Isn't there a Welsh goddess of nature called Caillech?"

"Irish, but yeah. Why?" I just motioned toward her. "Oh. Okay, I'll be Caillech. It's pretty." she said, content.

I turned around. "Speaking of goddesses, Ali could be called Hestia, like the Greek Keeper of the Hearth, and Lily can be Athena, the Greek Goddess of War and Wisdom." They both nodded their approval.

"Haylie…" I couldn't think of a name for her. "Haylie, give me ideas."

"Tr-"

"No! Next."

"Punk!"

"No."

"Drummer!"

"No…"

"Pony!"

"No."

"Puppy!"

"You're a wolf, not a pup."

"Um, Mystic!"

"…That might actually work. I was just thinking 'Aero,' because that's 'air' or 'wind' in Latin."

Haylie thought for a second. "I like Aero better, since it doesn't sound all girly."

Sonic jumped off the table. "Okay, so there's Aero, Hestia, Luna, Swi- sorry, Sora, Athena, Caillech, and you?" he asked me.

I smiled.

"I'll be Krystal. Krystal the Hedgehog."

**OMYGOD TOO MUCH HOMEWORK! I had so much this last week and too little time to type. And this was a long chapter. I had to think of all their appearances and names, and I hate doing that. When I couldn't describe, say, Ali as an echidna, I drew it out. If I couldn't draw it, I changed a picture of Tikal to look like her. Then I typed it out, but yeah, you get the idea. Plus, I want time to read others' fics. Anyway, I don't have this story planned out yet; I'm kinda just going with it. Oh well, never failed me before!  
Please review! Reviews are always welcomed! Thank you!**

**And I have a vague idea planned out. Get the emeralds, stop Eggman, surprising ending with a twist, the usual. I'll try to update more often, but don't hold me to that.**

**~Silvershadow471**


	6. A Fight and Friends, Old and New

"Krystal? Why Krystal as a name?"

"I told you before, Sonic. I like the name and my fur first reminded me of quartz crystals. There are two reasons for you."

"But… But hedgehogs have, like, a sacred chain of 'S' names. You could be called Serenity, or Sparky, or Serengeti, or something! What about Spaghetti?"

"That's stupid."

"I know; now I'm even hungrier. My point, though, is that hedgehogs have 'S' names."

"Amy."

"…Well, she's not a famous or important hedgehog, like me, Shads, Silver-"

"Mephiles."

"He's not a hedgehog."

"He has the form of a hedgehog."

"But he's not truely a hedgehog."

"I'm not truely a hedgehog."

"...He's not important."

"He killed you!"

"Time paradox!"

"He's the whole reason for the game!"

"And Iblis."

"He's not as important as Mephiles."

"I agree," Luna said, joining the argument. "Mephiles is really important."

Sonic was annoyed, now."But he's not a-"

"Will you people shut up!" Hestia yelled, stopping. Sonic and I almost walked into her. I thought I saw one of her quills flicker orange, but it disappeared. "Thank you!"

The eight of us were walking down the hill from the school. We went through the woods to avoid being spotted, but Sonic complained that it was too slow. Then we started arguing.

When we made it the whole three hundred yards down the hill, we stopped under a partially-shaded tree. Swimmy was already tired, even though we walked for less than five minutes, but Aero complained. "Can't I just run to Starbucks?"

"No," I said simply. "We have to figure out how we can get all the Emeralds before Eggman does."

She thought for a moment. "Can't we give him a rain check or something and just run around until we find them?"

I just shook my head, sighing. My quills shook, too, but didn't fall over. I still wonder how they manage to stay in place. "You're starting to sound like Sonic."

The blue mobian just smiled his trademark grin. "That's me!

"Now, on to the Emeralds. Each one gives off a certain type of chaos energy. Some can sense it, other can't. Echidnas usually can, but I don't think Hestia knows how to yet."

"Then how do we find the lost gems, Mr. Know-It-All?" she asked, even more annoyed. It must have been her fire abilities, since she can't release them yet.

"We can use an Emerald locater."

"Great!" Aero said, jumping up. "Off to Home Depot!"

"Get down, Aero!" hissed Athena, forcing her down onto the grass.

"It's not that easy," the hedgehog continued. "There are two ways we can one. First, we can steal one from Eggman-" More joy from Aero. "Or get one of my friends to help. There's Tails, who can build a locater, or Knuckles, who can sense Chaos Energy. If I had a choice, Tails should come to this world before Knux. He'd destroy this mountain chain over here looking for them.

"So, Tails?" He got unanimous nods of approval, even from the ones who were confused. "One problem: By the looks of it, he's in another world right now."

"Can we bring him here the same way you got here?" I asked, curious.

"I, and probably Professor Obese as well, so we were sent here by an extremely powerful, involuntary Chaos Control. I think it was sent by you, wasn't it?" he added, looking over at me.

"Wha-" I started, then remembered the shock from a few days ago. "Oh, that was Chaos Control! Now I get it! So now I have to bring Tails here with it, too, but we need to find the purple Emerald. Right, Bluey?"

"Yeah. But where can we find a large, purple gem?"

"A jewelry store!" Aero said, jumping up again. "And there's one right across the street!" She pointed at a store with a glowing neon emerald on the 'O' in 'Open'. Then she added, "Not in the sign, in the store!"

Sure enough, after she said that, a huge black and blue …thing broke through the wall with a giant wooden club. I thought it looked familiar, but I couldn't think when Sonic ran past me and jumped on the thing. "C'mon and kill the Titan!" he said encouragingly. "These things are fun to kill!"

_Oh yeah, a Titan,_ I thought as the group of us mobians ran over.

Athena and Aero immediately joined the fight, throwing shurikens and clawing skin. Luna tried to help, doing a few little spells, but only managed to make its club glow yellow. Caillech called up a few vines to bind the Titan. Thorned vines.

_She's been practicing,_ I thought while trying to use some psychic powers. It only gave me a headache.

After a minute or two, we stood around the dead body of the Titan. It was covered in its own black blood, claw and teeth marks, and shining ninja stars. It laid there, tied to the ground with dark green vines.

"Isn't someone going to notice this?" Athena said in a slightly sarcastic tone.

"Nah," said Sonic. "It'll disappear in a few seconds."

I watched as the creature and the vines disintegrated into nothingness. The only thing left was a black, blood-stained Emerald. "Guess we didn't need you to track it, right Hestia?" I asked in a joking manner. She didn't answer. "Hestia?"

I turned to see her sitting on the grass a little ways away. A blue otter was laying face-down next to her. "What are you doing?"

The echidna stood up. "How did you expect me to fight that thing?" she asked, loudly.

"Maybe with fire?"

She looked down, embarrassed, all anger gone. "I… I don't know how to use it yet."

I walked over to her. "No need to feel sorry for yourself. I can't use my abilities yet, either."

"But I should know by now."

"You've been a pyrokinetic for thirty minutes." I heard a cracking sound behind me, but didn't turn around. "Come on. Let's get with the others."

"Okay," she said, feeling better. "Get off the ground, Swimmy." She tapped the otter with her sandal.

"Call me Sora! You guys have cool names and I don't! Swimmy sounds cheesy!" she yelled into the grass.

I smiled. "Sora's a boy's name."

"It is?"

"Yeah."

"Says who?"

"Square Enix."

"…"

"Fine, we'll call you Sora."

I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to see Luna. "What's up?"

"Can you two help us out?" she asked, excluding Sora. She was pointing to Caillech and Sonic shaking a tree branch around.

"Sure…"

Hestia and I ran over to them. I stopped next to Athena. "Why?" I asked, amused.

"The black blood on the jewel is some kind of tar, so it's stuck to the branch."

"Ah."

When I tried to use my powers again, it worked! I felt my strength go into a single thought. The thought turned into pure energy. It prickled my skin slightly as a bright cyan glow covered me. After figuring out how to direct the energy, some of it left and covered the branch in the same cyan glow, halting its movement. Smiling, I saw the black emerald stuck to the end of it.

"It won't come off…" Caillech said, disappointed.

After a failed attempt to pull it free with psychic energy, I turned to Luna, smiling questionably. She just shook her black head, saying, "I can't get it off, either."

We kind of just stood there for a few more minutes, thinking.

"Wait…" Aero said, slowly. "Can't tar be burned off?"

We turned to a grimacing Hestia. She opened her mouth to object, but gave up. "Fine, I'll try."

She walked over to the Emerald on Caillech's tree branch. After trying to light it on fire, all she succeeded at was getting her finger stuck to it.

"This is getting annoying. It's a stupid rock!" She picked up a stick from the ground with her other hand and tapped the Emerald with it. "Fire Burnio!" she cried, and then screamed when the stick and Emerald erupted into flames. After a few seconds, the flames died out. Without the tar, the Chaos Emerald fell to the ground, now back to its normal purple color.

As I picked my Emerald off the ground, Sora, finally up and doing something, ran to Hestia, cheering for her. They were jumping up and down, happy for the echidna.

When I stood up, Emerald in hand, Sonic came over to me. "What's with them?" he asked.

"Oh, just a little happy dance they do when someone does something good. Either that or they're cold. You have a lot to learn, Sonic."

He smiled. "Gotcha. Now that you have your Emerald, we sh-" He stopped, ears perking up. Losing the smile, he motioned for us to be quiet.

When the bouncing stopped, I could hear a faint cry. I located it from behind the jewelry shop. Everyone else heard it, too. We all ran to the back of the building. Sonic and Aero reached it in less than a second and the rest of us soon followed.

Tied up on the back wall was one of the students from our school, completely covered in ropes and rags. Who, though, I wasn't sure. Aero and Athena immediately started clawing up the rags and cutting the ropes. After a few seconds, a girl about my age fell to the ground. Even though it was only about a two foot drop, she was breathing heavily. Her shoulder-length hair fell around her face. Her hair was a dirty blond-brunette color. She pushed it behind her ears as she stood up. Even though she was short and appeared to be younger than me, she looked like someone in my class.

She bent over to get her blue glasses off of the ground. When she put them on, though, it hit me. _How could I be so dumb?_

Apparently, Aero realized it at the same time, because the wolf ran up to her and, giving her a hug, shouted, "Abby!"

The girl looked surprised and pulled away from the crazy animal. "What the heck?" she asked herself, looking at us strange mobians.

"Abby, it's me, Haylie! Don't you remember me?" she asked her with open arms. That just scared the girl more.

I walked up next to Aero. "The problem, though you sound like Haylie, is that you don't look like Haylie. Remember?" I asked Aero sarcastically while hitting her in the head. "You must think we're going crazy, huh Abigail?"

Another familiar voice seemed to bring Abigail back to the world. "Wait…" she said, slowly. "If you're Haylie, and you're…" She trailed off, pointing at me. Then she said in a stronger tone, "Aw, what did you blow up this time?"

I was genuinely surprised. "Nothing. Well, the classroom, but that wasn't really my fault. Why?"

"C'mon, you look just like your favorite Sonic character! You must of blown up your Wii or something!" That's when Sonic stepped in.

"Hey, I'm not your favorite?" That scared the heck out of my friend.

I just sighed. "Long story short," I told her. "Haylie, Cara, Ali, Lily, Sierra, Anna, and I are chosen ones of some prophecy. Magic powers, Sonic's here, and we're in his kinds' forms of sorts. Now we need to get magic rocks to save the world from maniacal Mr. Fat Egg. Is that good enough for you?"

She let out a laugh. "Mr. Fat Egg?" Sonic was laughing about that as well.

"Not the point!" I said, smiling. "Do you know who tied you up, Abby?"

She shook her head. "I just know he was black. And not human black, but with dark black skin, or… fur, I guess."

"Was it the Titan?"

"What?"

"Never mind." I turned to the cobalt hedgehog, holding out my Emerald. "And with this?"

"You'll have to bring Tails here the same way I came here, but how was that?"

I thought for a second. "Let's see… My brother was playing Sonic 3 & Knuckles on the Wii and I turned on my laptop. It or the Emerald shocked me, sending you here from the game. That's all I know."

"Then… Try to use it again on a game with Tails in it!"

I looked up and down the street. "I don't have my Wii with me. That would be just weird if I did. And there aren't any houses around."

Abigail, who I forgot was still with us, said, "I have a game on my phone. Would that work?"

I smiled. "That would be perfect!"

She got her cell phone out of her bag. It, too, was tied to the wall, but we got it out anyway. _Whoever tied the ropes was never a boy scout_, I thought.

Turning on the blue Verizon phone, I went to 'Games' and found 'Sonic the Hedgehog 2: Mobile' at the top of the list. Turning it on, I played for a minute. Sonic looked at it, amazed. "That is just freaky," he muttered. His eyes widened as I made the mini Sonic and Tails fall on spikes. "Ouch…"

I stopped in a spot on the game. Throwing up the Chaos Emerald for no reason, I caught it and asked, "Do I really have to say 'Chaos Control' when I do it? It sounds dorky."

He let out a small laugh. "At least you don't sound like Silver. He really sounds like a dork when he does it!"

Sighing, I closed my eyes and clutched the Emerald tighter. I could feel the power from its core. Using it the same way as my psychic abilities, I felt the energy gather around my fingertips, but it was stopped. Regretfully, I said, "Chaos Control!"

The energy exploded from my hands, again shocking me, only not as badly. I felt something hard against my back and turned, opening my eyes. I had fallen against a tree. The only problem was that I wasn't standing near any trees. Looking up I saw the world had a reddish tone to it. Abigail and the other mobians seemed to be stuck in place.

_Oh yeah,_ I thought. _Distortion of time and space. Forgot about that bit. Gonna have to get used to things like this._ I cut the energy powering the Chaos Control with a single thought and set the gem down on the ground. It glittered for a second, and then died down. When the world was back to normal, I thought, _I can get used to the powers, though._

Sora looked over at me, confused. "Krystal, why are you over there?"

Standing up, I laughed and rubbed the back of my neck. "Side effects."

"Oh… Ow." Everyone stiffened.

"What Sora?"

"That wasn't me." She turned to the jewelry shop. "It came from there."

The voice sounded again, more familiar this time. It asked, "What just happened, Sonic?"

Sonic and I smiled. "Tails!"

He jumped up on the roof of the building and came down with the tired-looking fox. "It worked!" I shouted, overjoyed. The two-tailed vulpine slowly looked up.

"Silver?" He looked down as Sonic set him on the grass. "…Wait!"

His head shot up as he looked around. "You're not Silver!"

I smiled apologetically. "Yeah, about that…"

Hestia looked up the hill. "Hey, we should get moving. The cops are coming down the hill."

Tails looked up at her, too. "Tikal? No…"

Sonic gave him a pat on the head and looked around at us. "Where to?"

Aero hopped from one foot to the other, eager to get going. "No one's at my house!"

"Okay, let's go!"

Abigail put her phone in her now untied bag. "Can I come?" she asked, hopefully.

"Sure, Abby."

Picking up the Emerald, I tapped into the Chaos Energy. "Chaos Control!"

* * *

When the police got to the shop, they only saw a hole in the crumbling wall and a pile of rags and ropes around the back. When something moved, though, one of them turned. It could be the missing students they were supposed to find. He moved over to a tree with a three foot dent in it. The outline of it glowed a very faint blue.

That was the last thing he saw before someone knocked his legs out from under him, his face hit the ground and the world went black.

**Okay, a few things.**

**First off, thank you for the reviews! During the now-common homework streak every night, I like checking my email and seeing a 'FF Review Alert' or a 'FF Favorite Story' in my inbox. It makes me happy!**

**Second, this chapter turned out to be a lot longer than I expected. I'll try to make them shorter if you want, but I can't see or hear through computer screens. That would be just weird.**

**Third, the project I had this week took up most of my time, so that's the reason for the delay. **

**Fourth, since I have never written anything this long or a story for enjoyment in general, I haven't faced the dreaded writer's block until last Wednesday, when I started this chapter. Now I see what writers mean when they talk about it. Ugh…**

**And lastly, just a note: I'll try to get a chapter a week up. If I don't, I'm probably writing another one-shot or working on the co-write my friend, Sierra, and I are working on. It should, hopefully, be up under her user, Singer in the Silence, in a few days.**

**Also, this story will be on a short hiatus from mid-April to May, since I'll be in Amsterdam, Holland for a week with my class and I can't bring my laptop on field trips. Just a note for when you think I'm ditching this story. Why would I do that?**

**Oh my god, I type too much! If anyone agrees with that, please tell me. Anyway, thanks for reading this incredibly long chapter and please review!**

**~Silvershadow471 **


	7. Aero's House

"So, let me get this straight," Tails said, looking at me from across the table. "The humans made pixilated entertainment screens that allow them to view other worlds?"

"Yup."

"And they can see us from our home world because the screens bend fragments of light and the fabric of space like Chaos Control?"

"Uh-huh."

"The energy from the Chaos Emeralds distorts the pixels in a way that causes them to form a multi-dimensional portal in which we came through, right?"

"Correct."

"And you girls are mobians from another viewed world, too?"

"That's right! You're smarter than you look. Everything's easy enough," I said, trying to sound convincing. Tails couldn't know who we are.

He nodded and smiled. His sky-blue eyes darted toward the other hedgehog at the table. "Yeah! That's simple enough, right Sonic?"

The hedgehog just looked at us, dumbstruck. After a few seconds, he muttered, "Yeah, simple." Then he turned in the swivel chair towards the TV. I just laughed and went over to the couch Abigail was on.

We went to Aero's house because both her parents work during the day. Neither of them would be coming back for another three days or so. I didn't know why. Everyone managed to fit in the living room. Of course, most of us were shorter now, but the room was huge! It had two couches, two tables, a television, bookshelves, a few cabinets, some chairs, and other sundries that made the room comforting. The other half of the room was a kitchen with its own furniture. Sonic and Tails were around one table, Caillech around the other. Luna, Hestia, and Sora were by the TV. Aero was on the bench in front of the window, watching the wind blow a leaf by and ruffling the trees and grass. Athena was on the other couch, trying to figure out how to text with claws.

I had warped home after we reached Aero's house and got a few Sonic games to play. They were playing Sonic Heroes to "research" Sonic and other mobians. So far, Luna was winning.

Abby was working on constructing a small metal thing on the other couch. After a while of watching her, I asked, "You know by now that we have aliases in these forms, right?"

Her green eyes flickered towards me for a second. "You think I forget that easily?"

"No." That's Abby alright. She's not disturbed by the fact that video games are deadly now. Ah, a great friend indeed. "It's just our top priority that Tails or any of the other mobians don't figure out what our real names are or that we aren't actually mobians."

"I know." She put her project down and looked at me. "I was thinking… Since I can't come along with your group, maybe I can help Tails with gadgets and stuff for you. I know a bit about machinery."

Beaming, I said it would be fine. I was going to tell her that it was too dangerous for her to come without powers, anyway. "It's up to Tails, though."

"I know! I don't forget that easily!" she said, laughing. "I want you to take this, though."

She grabbed my gloved hand and put her little invention in it. When she let go, it unraveled into a gleaming silver watch. I turned it over, surprised she had put this together. It wasn't just a watch, either. It had a small, rectangular screen and two black buttons.

It also had a tiny camera on it. "A video watch?"

"Yeah," Abby said, embarrassed. "I made a pair of them in science class. I have the other one in gold. See?" She pushed her sleeve back, showing a glint of gold under all her other bracelets. "I hope that's okay, 'cuz I know you like silver better than gold. I didn't have time to carve and decorate it, but I set it to play Dreams of an Absolution when I call you. That's alright, right?" She looked worried, almost terrified of my opinion.

"Alright?" I pulled her into a tight hug. "It's wonderful! Thank you so much!"

She just giggled. "Your quills tickle."

Letting her go, I said, "You don't have to be afraid of me, ya know. I'm still the same person. But the buttons?" I pointed to the black spots on the silver faceplate.

"Left one to call and hang up. Right one to answer a call."

"Krystal!"

I turned to see Hestia and Sora playing the game now. The latter was waving a hand at me. Her ocean blue eyes were practically laughing. She called to me, "Now I know why you like video games so much. They're awesome!"

I walked up to the otter and watched her for a moment. When her eye twitched, Hestia voiced everyone's thoughts. "Sora?" she asked cautiously. "Did you have sugar?"

"No, of course not." She shook her head and looked at us like we were the crazy ones.

Hestia forgot to pause the game, though, so a robot came up and, like what all robots want to do, shot Sonic. Being one to stand on an edge at peculiar times, the Blue Blur fell with a short "uh!"

Sora laughed a little insanely and traced where the hedgehog fell in the air with her hand. Smiling, she yelled, "Whee he he he! Bye-bye Bluey!"

When I opened my mouth to tell her the real Sonic was watching from the table, she fell over, stuck in yet another laughing fit.

Hestia started giggling after Sora choked on air. I sighed. _Every time._

"Hey Krystal," Athena asked, clearly unimpressed by the matter at hand. "Can you transport a few of these character guys here?" She had a sly way of speaking; a way that usually got people to do her bidding.

I wasn't fooled. "...Why?" I slowly asked, looking into her red eyes. _I wonder if I have mind reading powers. Or telepathy. Or both. That would be cool._

"Maybe a few of them look kinda cute."

Yep. That's Athena. Hasn't changed. "Who, exactly?"

"Well..." She was smiling. "Maybe that black hedgie."

"Shadow?" I asked loudly, genuinely surprised. That caught Sonic's attention. He apparently listened to the conversation the whole time while he talked to Tails. With a slight stir of the air, he was next to us in a fraction of a second.

"How can you like that Faker?" the other hedgehog asked. He looked exastperated and betrayed. "What does he have that I don't? He's my copy!"

I thought he was hinting something, but Athena blocked out his interrogation. "So can you?" she asked, stepping in front of Sonic.

I sighed. "Sure, Athena." When the tiger's puppy dog eyes lightened as she squealed, I added, "Maybe he'll help us some day."

Sonic, on my other side now, grabbed my shoulder. "No. Just no."

I looked at his hand and willed up a bit of power. His hand snapped back after being bathed in a cyan glow and stayed back.

I turned toward him, trying to understand why he wasn't his free-spirited self. "Sonic, you're not jealous, are you?" I asked, letting his hand fall free.

His expression softened a bit. "No, of course not, but I just talked to Tails." He motioned to the fox, who stared at the TV screen in disbelief.

"He said he doesn't remember anything."

I didn't get it. "Doesn't remember what?"

"Everything!" Okay, now the hedgehog looked like he was freaking out. He turned me towards the television, hands on my shoulders. "He doesn't remember anything from this... this game. Nothing from any game!"

My eyes widened as I realized what he meant. "Do you remember?" I asked nervously.

"Yeah. That's what scares me." He sighed and added, "He remembers Silver and a few others, like Eggman. But... What if Shadow doesn't remember us?"

Turning, I met his emerald gaze. He looked away from my blue eyes, his own inspecting his elbow. I grabbed his shoulder and asked, concerned, "Sonic, what's wrong with you? You're not usually like this."

He looked down at his shoes and shook his head. "It's different," he said. "This is a different world. A world with humans. A normal world. I- we don't fit in. I could do anything here that I could do at home and commit suicide. For Shadow, he could still be on a rampage against humans. He could do more damage here than he did before. I can't fight him or anyone else, either. Not again. I couldn't put any of you in danger, either.

"Then the prophocy will-" He stopped and finally looked up at me. Trying to put on a fake smile, he added, "The prophocy will be wrong, right?" His eyes gave him away.

The insignia on my hand flashed a bright cyan for a second, but I let him go. He was lying and hiding secrets that he was afraid to share... now. No sense in tourturing an ally. I also saw he had to run away from Athena and her katana. A small piece of a blue quill was the only thing in front of me less than a second.

"No one asked you, hedgehog," she said loudly as Sonic evaded another strike. He landed gracefully on a table, which just made the kitty madder. "You kept me waiting for a cuter hedgie for no reason!"

"No, Athena," I said with mock seriousness. "You can't kill the hero." I threw her sword across the room with a slight shockwave, cutting off the tip of a leaf on a flower in a nearby vase. _I really can get used to telekinesis._

The black feline put on her 'inocent look'. "Well of course I can. I can beat him to death. Simple, sweetie!"

I rolled my eyes. "Whatever," I said as I turned to get my Emerald from the table.

Behind me, I heard muffled dance steps and a sweeping tail, along with, "Whatever with a capital 'E'!"

Taking the violet jewel, I turned to the television. Hestia and a slightly-delusional Sora were watching the ending cutscene of the game. Apperently Luna has mastered the art of cheating with magic.

I tapped into the massive expanse of hidden energy and said "Chaos Control" yet again. I wondered how many times I would say that in weeks to come. Or months. Maybe even decades, I guess. Anything's possible now.

_I think I'm getting better at this._ I thought. I could actually feel the energy emitted by the Emerald when it flashed this time. The world around me dimmed to a reddish hue. The aftermath of the blast wasn't as bad, either. I only was knocked back a few yards and only broke two lightbulbs. Pretty good in my opinion.

When I stopped myself, I was a few feet off the ground. Dismissing the psychic energy, I jumped down on a table, almost landing on a seemingly-paralyzed Sonic. Now to finish the warp. I think I understand it well enough, so I'll try to explain it:

Energy is given off by heated atoms. The hotter the atom, the faster it moves. If you have lots of energy, the atoms in your body move more, making a form of chemical energy, yadda yadda, thus performing actions. Psychic energy is like that. Brainwaves don't usually have a physical effect on the world; they're too weak. Everyone has an aura, though. Your aura is an energy field given off by your body. They are mostly affected by thoughts and brainwaves. That's why if you think you can do something, your aura will sometimes help you accomplish it. On the other hand, pessimistic auras will slow your body down. Most creatures have a thin aura. Only those with thick auras can truely be psychic. The atoms in thick auras can all be affected by a chain reaction. A thought is sent out as a slight brainwave. It is carried by the atoms of your aura until it generates enough energy to glow. When atoms have this much energy, they can affect the physical world. Because they are infused with energy from thoughts, you can control the energy with other similar forms of energy. All the energy collected by you aura is spread out to complete the task of the original thought. This is what is known as psychic, psychokinetic, or telekinetic abilities.

Chaos Control is similar to this. More people can use it or a form of it because the Emeralds already have energy in them. The trick is to tap into it. With the thought of using the energy, you can connect with one or more of the Chaos Emeralds, gems infused with power and a connection to the creation of matter. Because of this, time stops and space is compressed. The energy can make your aura glow, but it doesn't always have to. The amount of energy is sometimes too much for your body to handle, resulting in weariness and suseptability to the aftermath of energy. Once the energy takes its full effect, thoughts can affect the matter of the world.

Why we have to say "Chaos Control" everytime is anyone's guess. Maybe it's to keep your train of thoughts straight so it doesn't backfire and kill you. Maybe it's to make us sound stupid. Either one works.

I don't quite understand how a TV and a video game system act as an interdimensional portal, either. If Sonic knew Naka, maybe he made it purposely to travel to Mobius. It could of been an accident. Whatever the reason, SEGA should give the Sonic Team a raise. I mean, Sonic Team, even before, was a lot cooler than Star Trek, but those actors have more money. Now the Sonic Team has a scientific reason to be richer.

Focusing the Chaos Energy on the television, I used it to shorten the distance between our worlds. This is how warping happens. Since Chaos Energy can manipulate the fabric of space, you bend it until one step can span thousands of miles.  
Releasing some energy from the Emerald, I focused it to send Shadow here. With a twinkle of purple, he was transported to our Earth. Some can't fare well from the over-dosing of energy, but the ebony hedgehog is practically made to control it. He'll be fine.

Where Shadow actually was, though, was a complete mystery. I wasn't too worried. Tails was on the roof of a jeweler's shop, which proves I'm not an expert at landings.

What I was worried about was the fact that I couldn't control the Emerald any more.

I was trying to cut the power emitted and let time flow free, but it didn't work. The purple sheen on my Emerald deepened and soon started to bathe the red hue of frozen time with violet.

My eyes widened as I tried once again. The gem flashed a forest green and started to sizzle in my hand. I couldn't let go. Closing my eyes, I gritted my teeth, trying to stop the pain. I knew I failed when I screamed from another wave of agony.

Shaking, I opened my eyes a bit. As they were stabbed by another green flash, I only saw the cyan insignia on my hands flood with red-violet. My hand was burning now, even without flames. I was trembling. Sweat was making my fur stick together, stiff. I realized I was losing feeling from my feet up as my sight slowly turned darker. I noticed my fur getting darker. Everything was getting darker. Energy was still powering this worldwide distortion. That thought made me go wild with panic. If I die here, no one will know. I'll be stuck in frozen reality. I've been a prophecized mobian for a few hours and I would already be dead. Another flash from the Emerald, red this time, was enough to make me go from agony to anger.

Weakly, I lifted myself off of the ground (How did I get there?) and tightened my grip on the- _my_ Chaos Emerald. I gritted my teeth into a snarl as I resorted to stopping the Chaos Energy with psychic energy.

My hand flashed blue and the connection faltered slightly. That was all I needed. Even though I didn't think it would work, I threw the crystal across the room and sent out a psychic-infused Chaos Spear. Like a dart of ice, it hit the target and shattered into millions of tiny blue shards, the only color in the world at that moment other than purple.

The Emerald seemed to stop. Then it too shattered, shards scattering and disappearig upon contact.

I was breathing heavily, anger slowly being replaced with joy. A faint smile came to my lips. It was short-lived, though, since it faded as I fell to my knees. My hands touched the ground, my head falling between my shoulders. Sweat dripped from my face, making faint marks on the carpet. The happiest thought was that my hands weren't physically burned and the insignia were no longer dark.

My shaky arms finally gave in. I fell to the floor, strength leaving my limbs and replaced with tiredness. Quickly fluttering my eyes open, I saw the tip of one of my white quills. Maybe they can't stay up all the time.

I closed my eyes, the veil of darkness leaving me unconscious.

* * *

"What happened to her?"

"Where's the Emerald?"

"I told you, I can't answer those questions now."

"Has this happened before?"

"Not that I know of. Sonic?"

"Nah."

"Ugh... Can we have dinner yet?"

"No Sora! You would leave Krystal here?"

"Eh, we'll bring her back some pizza."

"She's unconscious!"

"Fine!"

I heard footsteps, going from the carpet to the wood floor and back again. I've been hearing the others' conversations for a while now, but I couldn't bring myself to move. My body was still weak from that ...little incident.

I felt something fall on my head. Then another. And another. After a few more things fell on me, it started to get annoying. I slowly opened my eyes to see Sora standing over me, holding a huge sphere of water in the air. A drop of water fell from the rest and hit me on the forehead. _Great, water tourture,_ I thought as I groaned.

"Hey, she's waking up!" I turned my head to see that came from Caillech. Everyone else was around me. It looked like something you would see on CSI: Miami or something. Everyone looked concerned but relieved that I was up.

Well, everyone except Sora.

Seeing that I was awake, she proceded to drop the rest of the water on me. A yelp escaped my lips as a threw up a quick shield.

I managed to block most of the water, which, for me, is pretty good for a second's notice. As I sat up, though, I learned two things. One: Don't trust Sora with delacate or timely things, including unconscious friends. Two: My shoes were not waterproof.

As I shook my foot, trying to get the water out, everyone asked questions. The only one I heard, which I'm assuming was everyone else's question, was Tails ask, "What happened?"

"I- I don't know." My voice was higher and a little shakey. "The Emerald went out of control and almost killed me!"

Luna looked a little surprised. "How could you get hurt by a Chaos Emerald while you're using it?"

"I don't know. Where's Shadow?" I asked, suddenly remembering the ebony hedgehog.

Aero shook her head while Hestia said, "He's not here. We checked everywhere, even where the cat was stuck on the roof a few weeks ago."

I sighed. "Well this sucks," I said. "I almost died for nothing."

I got up, a little unsteadily at first, but my strength came back after a few moments. Looking out the window to my right, I saw the wind blow a few leaves around outside. It was beautiful, in my opinion. Of course, everyone else is entitled to their own wrong opinion, so that's okay if you think differently. I was just happy to be alive and with my friends (Yes, even Sora), staring at a gorgeous woodland scene.

That's when I heard a faint _click_.

Spinning around, I threw my arm out with another force field. Just in time, too. The huge boom that sounded was just amplified by my shield. The sound broke the windows, causing a few of my friends to scream.

Lowering the shield, I saw the barrel of an ion cannon. It was attached to a robotic arm. That arm was connected to the main robot, who was just a blue arsenal of weapons of every sort.

"Targets detected," Metal Sonic reported, still keeping the cannon pointed at me. "Sonic the Hedgehog and any allies. Eliminate on sight."

"Whoa, buddy," I said, holding a hand up and slowly pushing the cannon away with the other. "Can we talk this out first?" Reason always worked.

"Negative." Maybe not to a robot...

Luna walked to the front, whispering, "Let me handle this," as she passed me.

In front of Metal Sonic, she pushed the cannon down and said, "Metal, can you tell us who you're taking orders from?"

"I am here to complete the wishes of my master, Docter Eggman. My primary objective is to-"

"Kill and destroy, yeah, we know," Luna broke in, waving a hand. "What will you get if you kill Sonic, though?"

His expressionless eyes never changed (He's doing well at completing that objective, at least). "I will recieve praise from Master and internal pride for killing Sonic."

Luna's fingertip started glowing a bit. "What are you planning to do to him, if I may ask?"

"Sonic shall blasted with every weapon in my arsenal, beginning with a fatal ion beam through his head."

She gave a little laugh. The rest of us were still a little freaked, but she tapped his metalic nose with her glowing finger. "Oh no, I believe it is you who has an ion beam through their head."

The mecha's response to that was to raise his cannon and point it at the raven. Aero managed to knock her out of the way, getting a few singed furs on her tail.

After the blast, I realized it was more of an explosion rather than a shot. Blue and gray pieces lay on the ground in a smoldering heap, surrounded by smoke. It took me a while to realize what happened, but when I did, I ran over to Luna.  
"How did you learn how to do that?" I asked, hugging her.

"I don't know," she replied. "I guess I've learned stuff from Harry Potter."

We all were in a group hug when Sonic cleared his throat. "I know it's a very touching moment, Luna destroying her first robot, but Metal there was told to explode. He wasn't trying as hard as usual. If it was a distraction," he added as he hopped for a second. "we have to leave. Now."

As if to answer him, the mirrors and remaining windows shattered, the sonic boom knocking us apart. Sora screamed as the grass outside ignited, lighting our fear-filled faces as we saw another robot, this time it was closer to the size of the White House.

"No!" Sonic yelled as I raised a glowing hand to the robot. "Not now. Just get out with Tails!"

Sonic spin dashed the bot and gave me a look that meant I should go with the others. Tails had the door open with his foot, machinery in his hands. Sky blue eyes looked at me, wiser than an eight-year-old kit should be.

Jumping out the door and over the steps, you would think I would be outside in the flames. Well, that's the problem with big houses and good furnature. They have long hallways and flamable furnature, so I was inside in the flames instead. In my opinion, that's worse.

The other mobians and Abigail were unable to get past the fire, the door engulfed by the flames. The most obvious solution was for Sora to douse them with some water, but all moisture had evaporated. Surprisingly, she already knew that, so she was encouraging Hestia to do something.

The echidna seemed to look more reassured than before, because she put a hand in the fire without hesitation. Moving her hand to the side, the fire followed, leaving the charred door alone. With a tap on the door, it erupted into flames, quickly becoming a smoldering pile of ashes.

She stepped outside, an orange figure in the flames at sunset. Too much orange. She seemed to like it, though, since she turned to face us with a smile on her face.

Stepping outside, I saw fire all around the house and the cause of it in the back. The giant robot looked like a red arachnid of some sort. _Ew,_ I thought. I hated spiders.

Tails dropped one of his machines when he stepped over the ashes. Seeing as he was dropping a few more, I helped him carry some. One of the ones I picked up had a green grid and a blinking red dot on the screen. "Is this the Emerald Locater?" I asked.

"Yep. They're pretty easy to make. First, you-" He was cut short by a loud cracking sound and a yelp from Aero. Half of the house fell down, knocking the robot over.

Sonic appeared next to us. He didn't look tired at all. "Its legs are stuck," he said, pointing to the arachnid. "Where to?"

Taking the Locater from me, Tails replied, "The next Chaos Emerald is west of here. If only we had the Tornado." He sighed, missing the beloved plane.

Sonic looked at something behind me and ran off, asking, "Like this?"

Turning around, I saw the hedgehog standing on the aforementioned biplane a few houses down. One of the neighbors was in their doorway, staring at Sonic, confused. I would be confused too if dinner was interupted by a robot, fire, a plane in my yard, and a blue hedgehog on the plane in my yard, so I don't blame her. Well, not anymore, at least. I'm getting used to things like this.

We ran over, jumping the fences. Aero took a sad last look at her house, then follow us.

Tails was already in the plane, getting everything ready. Too bad the plane had only one seat.

"Aero and I can run," Sonic suggested, hopping off the wing. "A few can ride on the wings, too."

"Isn't that dangerous?" Hestia asked.

"So's him." He pointed to the robot, who had gotten three of his legs free and another two were close.

Seeing that, Sora jumped on the plane. Tails got out of the pilot's seat, saying, "It's on auto-pilot, so someone can take the other seat. I can fly myself there."

Abigail got in the chair, happy she didn't have to ride on the wings, and Hestia got on between her and the tail. Caillech and Athena jumped on the right wing, while Luna got on the left one with Sora. Realizing I was still on the ground, the raven asked, "What're you going to do, Krystal?"

"Me? I'll fly." Silver can, so why couldn't I?

She looked surprised. "How?" she asked.

Flaring up my cyan aura, I focused on lifting myself off the grass. To my amazement, I got a good ten feet up easily, though I could see how one would get tired after a long time.

Caillech let out a quick yelp as the Tornado lurched forward, turning out of the yard and onto the road, using it as a runway. Tails jumped out of the way and, tails propelling him forward, followed the plane as it picked up speed, Sonic, Aero, and I in tow.

Soon, all of us except the hedgehog and wolf were off the ground, heading toward what was left of the sun. Turning around for a second, I saw the robot get its last leg unstuck. Seeing we were already far ahead, it gave up the chase and busied itself with destroying the rest of the flame-engulfed house.

That's when I remembered Abby's video watch. I had left it on the table when Sora called me. Sadly, I flew over next to the plane, landing on the wing next to my friend. "Uh, Abby?" I said to get her attention. "I-"

"Need this?" She held out her hand, reveling the silver watch. Smiling, I took it from her and clipped it around my wrist. "I also found something else," she added, holding up her other hand.

In it were two gold rings. One had seven crystals in the band. The other had tinier crystals around the centerpiece, a purple gem.

Slipping the latter on my finger, it gave me a slight shock. How the Chaos Emerald was still intact and twelve times smaller escaped me. I just hoped nothing deadly happened to me again while using it.

Putting the other ring over the first, I saw the leftmost crystal change from being a white quartz to a violet amethest. Not wishing to ponder the matter tonight, I jumped off the plane. Falling for a few seconds, feeling the wind blow my quills back, I thought about how alive I felt. This, almost dying multiple times and in mortal peril, was the best time I've had in my whole life.

Catching myself, I darted forward, flying under and over my friends, mobian and human, old and new. _This is what life means,_ I thought, smiling to myself.

That officially concludes the strangest day of my life.

**Sorry for the wait! The trial copy of Microsoft Word I was using expired. It came with the laptop I got for Christmas. I downloaded a copy my dad had, but it wouldn't work. Then my laptop kept freezing up. The only way I got this up was my field trip. Because of the volcano in Iceland, we couldn't go to Holland, so we took a road trip down the east coast for a week. Since I didn't have an iPod for the fourteen hour plane ride we were supposed to take, my dad gave me his iPod Touch. I downloaded a Document Managing app and started typing. Hooray for Apple! Again, sorry for the wait.**

**The explanation I had about psychic and Chaos Energies was made-up. I thought about it while listening to 'New Divide' by Linkin Park on our bus ride to Virginia. Since psychokinesis is a pseudoscience, I couldn't find an official explanation, so I made up my own theory. Hope it at least made a little sense. Many people say they don't understand me very well.**

**RR please!**

**~Silvershadow471**


	8. Hungry

_I'm hungry._

* * *

Since the sky turned black a few minutes after we took off, there wasn't much to see while I flew. A few stars here and there, but nothing else. Dark silhouettes of trees don't count.

For the duration of the trip, everyone on the plane talked and laughed. Normal behavior for middle school students, I guess. For me, though, I was content just listening, commenting on a few topics every now and then.

Soon bored with the talk, I tried my hand at skydiving again. The thrill that comes from falling to your demise was wonderful. I started to wonder why I was ever afraid of heights.

I got the answer when I couldn't catch myself fast enough on the sixth or seventh run. I slowed down enough so I didn't break any ribs when I hit that tree branch, but not enough to keep me from getting winded and stunned. I fell back, landing across a few branches. Luckily, they brought me to a complete stop.

Groaning, I sat up and rubbed my head. Two streaks, one blue, one purple, dashed by, ruffling the leaves a bit. After a second, the purple one came back, revealed as a black figure with glowing purple tints.

"Need any help?" Aero asked, laughing.

I gave her a tired smile. "Nope, I'm good." Standing up, I jumped through a gap in the branches. Catching and swinging off of one, I landed in front of the wolf, setting a hand on the ground for stability.

Seeing I was fine, Aero darted off, leaving only faint tracks and stirred leaves. Floating a foot or so off the ground, I flew after her, hoping I could catch up.

When I found her a few miles ahead, she was chatting away with Sonic. She was apparently thrilled to learn that he liked music and, more importantly, rock music. Wanting to show him who Green Day was, she realized I was there and asked me to see if anyone had saved her iPod from "its death in the fire."

I doubted it, but I went up to the Tornado anyway. Being psyhic is awesome and all, but the frequent headaches can get annoying.

Landing next to Abby, I asked, "Do you have Aero's iPod by any chance?"

"Yep!" Reaching into her bag, she pulled out an iPod, two Touches, a Nano, and four pairs of earbuds.

"That's mine!" Athena claimed, taking one of the Touches and earbuds, the other taken by Sora. Hestia let out a squeal of joy when she saw her iPod in Abigail's hand. When the Nano was left, Abby held it out to me, saying, "I'm guessing this is hers."

Taking it, I asked, "How did you know to grab everything before the fire?"

"The watch I have. The gold one. Remember?" I nodded. "I rigged it with a few gadgets that detect traps and lies. It went off after the you blacked out, so I got together a few things. Your watch, iPods, a laptop, money, my phone, a camera, stuff like that."

"Why a camera?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. In case we ever need one or if we want to take a picture."

Smiling, I said, "Well, yeah. What else is a camera good for? Where did you find my rings?" I added, kind of suddenly.

Abby didn't look too surprised. "They were next to your watch. The Emerald was in the gold- well, one of the gold rings, intact and shining."

"Weird." I held up my hand, turning it to catch the moonlight. "What about the other one?"

She took one look at my ring and shook her head. "All of them were white crystals."

"I know that. The one on the left turned purple when they touched. I want to know why."

"It sounds like some kind of Chaos Emerald collector," she said. "It could store the power of the Emeralds it comes in contact with in the empty gems. They seem to be strong enough to keep the energy without breaking, too. Amazing."

"And you're just assuming that?"

"Yup."

"Oh well. Guess you don't learn everything in hat science class, huh?" Not expecting an answer, I plugged the earbuds in Aero's iPod and put them in my ears. They didn't fit as well, since my ears were triangular, but good enough. Turning it on, I set it on shuffle and fell backwards off the wing.

_Oh, look,_ I thought. _Nice Guys Finish Last by Green Day. Why did I expect any different?_

The music helped the mood, but I was just happy diving through the air. When the ground was near, I could see my two sprinting friends. It looked like they were racing. I smiled, thinking of a trick.

I tried to move the air so it could act as a slide. With a firey aura, I started toward them, the only drawback being that I was going faster. _Who cares?_

I spread my arms out and laughed. At the last moment, I flipped and landed on my feet. Since my aura was already alit, it sent a cyan wave out, taking the force of the impact and spreading it. I stumbled a bit, but I hadn't died, so that's what made me happy.

The shockwave knocked Sonic back, but Aero was still up and laughing, her glowing tinted fur ruffled by the breeze. I took out the earbuds and held her iPod out, simply saying, "Nice guys finish last!"

When she took it, I jumped back in the air. Done with training for the day, I flew alone, occasionaly next to Tails, reviewing the last day's events.

* * *

Now here I am, barely keeping up with the Tornado and starving. I knew this trip would have some disadvantages, but I always underestimate them.

Most of the passengers on the plane were sleeping. Aero was getting tired from running, so I used some extra energy to fly her up to the plane. Since that was my last bit of energy, I fell onto the right wing, breathing heavily. It's a wonder all of us could be on the wings and the Tornado could still fly. Then again, we weighed less...

My head pounded, causing me to grit my teeth in pain. I groaned.

"You okay?" Turning my head a bit, I saw I fell next to Tails. The kit was tinkering with some of his appliances. The Emerald Locator next to him still had the green screen. The red point was in a different position since I last saw it, though.

"Yeah," I sighed. "Just tired."

"Okay." After a little while of silence, he asked, "How old are you?"

"Eleven."

His eyes widened. "Seriously?"

"Yeah. The others are fourteen, though. Except for Abby; she's thirteen."

"Really?" I nodded. "I would of guessed you were the oldest."

I gave him a sad smile. "Everyone thinks that."

"Well, I thought you all were at least the same age as Sonic. Your more mature than he is."

I laughed, asking, "Who isn't?"

"Yeah..," he said, smiling. "Why are you looking for the Chaos Emeralds anyway?"

That caught me off-guard, but I thought of something to say that only bent the truth a little. "Eggman found me with the purple Chaos Emerald and tried to kill us. Sonic showed up-as usual- in his super form and sent him flying- as usual. When the Emeralds scattered, he asked us to help gather them up again to send Eggman and us back to our worlds. We found the purple one-" I held up my hand. "and brought you here to help. Now here we are! How far are we from the second Emerald anyway?" I added before he could comment.

He looked at the tracker. "It's actually... actually right under us!"

Surprised, I leaned over and saw a reflection of the moon on a dark lake. It also looked relatively close to the plane. After a moment, we landed on the shore. Not a very smooth landing, so everyone sleeping on the wings fell off, screaming.

Sora looked up to see me giggling from the Tornado. "What are you laughing at?" she asked, annoyed.

"Nothing." I jumped down next to Caillech, Abby and Tails following. Helping the cat up, I saw a streak of blue come out of the woods and stop on the other shore. Dashing around, he stopped again next to Tails, stating, "I hate water."

"We know, Sonic," Tails replied.

"I'm guessing we're close to the Emerald," Athena asked, her arms crossed.

The fox nodded. "But first things first," he said. "Who's hungry?"

"Me!" we all yelled, raising our hands.

"Now how do we get food?"  
"Ah-" Aero started, drawing attention to her. Her eyes glowed purple in the night like the purple tints in her fur. She couldn't think of what else to say, so it was quiet for a few minutes.

_We need money to get food. Abigail said she had money. Let's hope it's enough. If any of us go into a store or restaurant, they'll freak. Mobians aren't common here, and the only human with us is-_

"Abby," I said aloud, smiling at her.

Soon everyone was agreeing with the idea except the subject. "I know I should get dinner, or breakfast, but where? I'm probably too young to get food for ten alone, anyway," she argued.

Sonic stepped up. "That's why I'm going with ya!"

"Good." Athena started pushing them away from the lake. "Go. Get food. Good children. Get food."

Abigail opened her mouth to continue arguing, but Sonic grabbed her hand and ran off.

When they were out of sight, Hestia asked, "So where's the Emerald?"

Tails held up the Emerald Locator. "It says it's close. The only option, though," he said. "is in the lake."

We turned to the dark surface of water. I'm not sure about the others, but I wasn't the best swimmer. In the dark, too? No. Someone else can get the Emerald, but I already had mine.

I forgot about Sora. She swam almost every day as a human, and now, she's the Ruler of water.

When another moment of silence came, the otter exclaimed, "I'll get it!" and ran to the water. Leaping into a smooth arch, her light blue fur disappeared into the dark abyss.

I say "abyss" because some of the Great Lakes are deep. I'm not sure which lake we were at, but it was bigger than I thought one would be.

That may sound dumb, but I didn't travel very often. When I did, it was always local or a few states south. _Now I'm going international._

We waited for an hour or so on the shore. I was wondering how deep the lake really was. Athena was back to listening to her music, occasionally dancing for us. Caillech and Hestia started a small fire, but the echidna stayed next to the flames. _She seems to like fire now,_ I thought. _That's good, at least._

Caillech had retreated to the woods, probably to a tree for some sleep. Tails, Aero, and Luna were sleeping up against the Tornado for most of the time. They needed the sleep.

I was off in the grass, meditating. Every psychic I had heard of meditated, so I thought it could help. My headache went away rather quickly and I felt some power come back, so I thought about making it a daily thing. Meditating felt like resting. Nothing mystical involved, but I found it calming.

What was a little strange was that I could sense another powerful presence nearby. It could be the Chaos Emerald, but I had never sensed my Emerald like that. Strange.

* * *

After a bit, Hestia said to no one in particular, "I hope she can breathe underwater."

Opening my eyes, I saw the sun was coming up. _That was quick,_ I thought. _We can't wait here much longer._

"I'll go get her," I said, standing up and streaching. Everyone except Aero, who was still sleeping, looked at me. No one said anything, though, but they gave me tired and worried looks. Taking them as an okay, I walked over to the water and stepped in.

Surprisingly, it was kind of warm.

Wading in farther, I tapped into my restored energy, causing my aura to light. I was thinking about what I would do if I had to, well, do this while I was meditating.

If I could make psychic shields that block out attacks, could they block out water?

Forcing the air around me to harden, I created a light cyan shield. It spread my aura out a few feet, making a large blue outline of my figure. Holding my breath in case it didn't work, I dove forward and under the water.

My shield worked well as a helmet and bodysuit. I couldn't feel the water and still had air. Diving down deeper, I felt a bit of pressure. Nothing too bad, but I couldn't stay under forever.

My air bubble acted as a light, too. I was amazed at the wildlife living in the water. Fish everywhere. Something wasn't right, though. The fish darted around, moving quickly and never staying in one place for more than a few seconds. The farther down I went, the less fish there were. _Maybe they're cold water fish,_ I thought. _The water was warm above, so..._

Reaching my hand out, I touched the water. Bad idea. The water was near boiling. I drew my hand back with a yelp, almost dropping my shield. I rubbed my hand and focused more on finding a blue otter and Emerald.

After an hour of searching, I went back to the surface for more air. Everyone on shore turned, but I dove back under. Abby and Sonic weren't back with the food yet, so I was back to searching.

On the other side of the lake, there were even less fish than before. I was swimming through the vast containment of water alone. The morning sun made the lake a little brighter, but it didn't matter deep down.

After another trip up and back, I went around the lake, scanning the walls. I was about to go up after another hour, but something bright caught my attention. A blue light at the bottom of the lake. If I saw it before, I must of thought it came from my shield.

Popping up for air, Sonic and Abby _still_ weren't back. Annoyed and hungry, I dove under, heading for the light.  
When I got close, I could make out kelp and a light. _Yes! The Chaos Emerald!_

I swam closer to get it. Well, what do you know, I _fell_ down to the lake floor. How do you fall through water?

Rubbing my head, I looked up to see a bored-looking Sora. She glanced at me. "Hey," was all I got.

Turning, I saw another flash of blue. Pushing the kelp away, I saw a glittering saphire gem. "Why didn't you get this, Sora? We've been waiting for hours," I asked.

"The plants won't let me."

Confused, I turned to see her tied up in kelp. Was kelp even indigenous to this area? I don't know, but there was kelp in the lake. Its use then was to be a living green straitjacket to bind a light blue otter.

Sighing, I looked back at my own hand. _Tied up, of course. Why did I expect any different?_

I sat down, seeing as I would be here for a while. I felt my other hand and feet get wrapped in kelp, too. Soon, I was completely wrapped in the green water plant. I looked around a bit; that was one of the only things I could do.

It looked like we were in some kind of cave, but we were up against a rocky wall in the lake. Air was inside, water was outside, like we were watching the lack of fish from an aquarium.

In our bubble, I saw bare lake rocks, kelp, and a mirror. I saw myself in it tied up in kelp with five white quills and a cyan aura. Closer inspection led to my jaw dropping when I thought it wasn't a reflection. Unless my eyes went from blue to golden-amber in water, I was sure it wasn't a reflection.

Seeing my expression, Sora laughed and made way with the introductions.

"She," she said, looking at him and nodding toward me. "is my friend Krystal. Krystal, this is Silver."

**Well, of course I had to bring my favorite character in! I know, shorter chapter. I felt like I had to end it here, though. The next one might be shorter, but I hope this means I'll update quicker! Yay!**

**Thank you all for the reviews and hits. I know more chapters means more hits per person, but I was so happy this got 150 hits in eighteen hours! The reviews are awesome! To answer an earlier review from krazikeo, I don't like romance, but small romantic scenes might come in later. I've been thinking about it and have a few planned out. If anyone has any ideas for pairings (no yaoi) or Emerald locations, you're welcome to suggest them.**

**Review, please, if you have the time and if you don't, review anyway! If you don't now, it's never certain that you'll do it later!**

**~Silvershadow471**


	9. Five More Left

"S- Silver?" I asked, stunned.

"Krystal?" He looked equally stunned. I didn't know why, since I just met him. He sounded just like he did in the games. Many people don't like how he sounded, but that's one of the reasons he was my favorite character.

I couldn't help but mutter, "You're real..." He must of heard me, because his expression went from shock to confusion.

"Of course I'm real," he said, acting as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Well, in a way it was. "Why wouldn't I be real?" His curious gold eyes had softened a bit. I would say they were almost concerned.

I glanced over at Sora, who was looking bored. "Long story," I answered him. "How did you get here anyway?"

Silver's quills brushed against the rocky wall as he leaned back. "Well, Blaze and I had struck down Iblis for the thousandth time when we came across this hedgehog. He knew where Iblis came from. He said we could finally kill him if we stop the one responsible for releasing him in the past. Then he took out this purple gem and a light covered us. When I woke up, I was tied up with this green stuff." He squirmed a bit, trying to get the kelp off. Failing, he continued, "I had somehow put up a psychic shield, so I didn't drown. I saw Sora here tied up, too, so I expanded our air bubble. She didn't need it, but I thought she did at the time. We talked a bit, waited for her friends, and then you came."

"Who's Blaze and Iblis?" Sora asked.

"Blaze is my friend and Iblis is the enemy. The monster created from the flames of evil. He's the cause of my world's apocalypse!" His eyes and aura flared up from the contained fury. Realizing this, he sighed and closed his eyes, trying to calm down.

"Your world? Would that be Sonic's world, too?"

"Who's Sonic?" Silver asked, his head slightly cocked. "Is he another one of your friends here?"

_Great,_ I thought, sighing. _He can't remember._

Changing the subject, I asked, "You said the guy had a purple gem, right?"

He nodded. "Yeah. It looked like a large cut amethyst, but it occasionally sparkled different colors."

I tapped into the power of the implied rock on my finger. I moved the energy away from me to a rock next to Silver. "Like this?" I asked, releasing the energy.

The Chaos Emerald materialized next to the hedgehog, scaring him a bit. Golden eyes dashed from me to the jewel, uncertain of what to think. "Yeah," he managed to say after a few seconds. "That's it. How did you do that?"

I shrugged. "Energy transportation, I guess."

"Since when have you been able to do that?"

What's a good answer? "I don't know. I can do it pretty easily, though. See?" I moved the Emerald using the same method, from the rock by the white hedgehog to my right side.

I didn't expect it to start flashing. _Oh God, not again. _But I forgot about the other Emerald. A flash of blue from the kelp accompanied the purple. I felt my kelp bindings fall away, onto the ground. Rubbing my arms, I saw the water plants fall around Silver and Sora as well. _…Cool._

The two Chaos Emeralds died down to their original sheen, the purple one glittering a dim indigo. Picking it up, I moved the energy back to my ring, forming the purple centerpiece that was the reason I got the ring in the first place.

I reached for the blue gem. As my fingers closed around its form, I saw one of the white crystals on my other, "Emerald collector" ring deepen. In a moment, a blue saphire was in between a purple amethyst and five diamonds.

The Chaos Emerald in my hand was slowly disintegrating into fine blue dust. A smooth feeling came to my hand as the cool dust drifted to the ground, fading away upon contact.

"What do you know, I'm a rock killer," I said as I stood up. Sora was up and stretching already. Silver was rising when he fell on his knee with a gasp. I looked up when a breaking sound rang throughout our air bubble. The cyan color was fading fast. I spread out energy, put up a shield of my own, and reinforced the barrier, taking the pressure of ten thousand some-odd gallons of water from the weaker one.

Silver looked up when the weight of the lake disappeared, his eyes wide with surprise. He saw my aura and gave a short, strained laugh. He smiled tiredly and said, "Thanks, Krystal."

I was thinking about something else. _Silver smiled? Has he ever smiled?_

Sora jumped next to me. "Going yet, hedgies?"

"Yeah." Silver managed to get up, shaking his legs out. I compressed our shield so it outlined the two of us; Sora was in the water already. As water flowed under us and into its original place, we jumped up, starting to swim to the surface. Silver looked even more surprised that he was swimming in air and actually making progress; maybe it was swimming in general. His world was surrounded by lava, and that's too hot for a hot tub.

I could see a shimmering image of the sun when we got close to the surface. We were almost out of air, but the water pressure was close to gone, making it easier to go upward. A light out of the corner of my eye caused me to look over at the other hedgehog. Silver had his aura lit and was pulling away from the psychic barrier. Looking at me, his eyes glittered with mischief. With that, he shot upward, creating a ripple in the water when he broke through, into the air.

I smiled and held my breath, shattering my barrier. The water rushed over me, quickly drenching my clothes and fur. The water wasn't burning anymore, though; it was back to its normal temperature. That's good. I wouldn't have like my skin burned off. Its normal temperature wasn't too warm, though. Pushing the water around me, I darted up and out of the water, the broken waves showering my face.

Hanging a few feet over the surface, I was a dripping wet, floating hedgehog. _What if someone came out here and saw me?_ But then, I didn't care. I was gazing at my friends waving to me from the shore. They had fire. I was cold.

* * *

Soon, I was back on dry land, sitting around our small fire and talking. After a few minutes, Tails asked, "Did you get the Chaos Emerald?"

"Yeah, I found it!" Sora said, waving a hand in the air.

"You did?" asked Hestia.

"Yep!"

"If you found it, then why did Krystal have to go get you?"

"Oh," she said, still keeping a cheerful face, "the plants didn't want me to."

The echidna slowly mouthed "the plants" with a confused face and looked over to me.

I laughed and said, "You're gonna have to get used to stuff like this happening."

"But you have the Emerald?" Luna asked.

"Yeah, I do." I held out my hand, and in it, the gem appeared, rolling slightly before I gripped it. "Two down, five more Chaos Emeralds left."

There was a dull thud behind me as Silver jumped down from his post in a tree. "You keep talking about these 'Chaos Emeralds'," he said as he walked over to our group. "What exactly are they, though?"

"The Chaos Emeralds?" Caillech asked. He nodded, and I took off from where she stopped.

"They're jewels containing energy. They can turn your thoughts into power." I didn't realize I was quoting the game, but I continued anyway, "Collect all seven, and a miracle's supposed to happen."

He just nodded, looked around at us, and asked, "Is anyone else hungry?"

"I know!" I yelled, starvation coming to my senses at the mention of hunger. "Where's Sonic and Abby?"

Athena answered me. "They're not back yet."

"Oh man, I'm starving," complained Sora.

Tails jumped up, his tails keeping him in the air. "While we wait, I'm going to go see if I can find any metals or gems that could be of use to us. Well, probably just to me, but anyway..."

I thought he was going to say something else, but he let the sentence drop.

As he flew off, Silver grabbed my wrist, gently pulling me to the side. "Can I talk with you?"

"Sure." We went over to the edge of the woods. I sat down, leaning against a huge oak, Silver across from me against a birch. "What's up?"

"You don't remember me?" he asked suddenly, looking worried.

I didn't notice, but laughed and said, "Well, sort of. Not in the way you're thinking of, though."

"What way would that be?"

"Oh, technology," I said casually. "The humans here made electronic games that tell the stories of other worlds. A few of them have you in them, so I don't _know_ you, remember you. Why?"

He seemed to skip my question. "Games? How long have you been here?"

"A while."

"How long a while?"

"Mmm... A long while, you could say."

Silver looked even more concerned. This time, I noticed his expression and lost the smile. "How did you get here?" he asked.

"My friends and I got stuck in a Chaos Control warp that was sent by the machines here. Before that, we were on our home world." I'm a good liar.

"Where's that?"

_That's new,_ I thought, and then replied, "A place called Terra."

The hedgehog mouthed "Terra" after me. "You said you were with your friends. How long have you known them?"

"Eh, a few years, maybe. I just met Sonic, though," I added.

He nodded, looking a little better. "And you're psychokinetic?"

"Yup."

"Telepathic?"

I brought my knees up under my chin and rested my arms on them. "If I am, I don't know how to use telepathy."

He sighed, his face getting more relaxed. We sat there for a while in silence.

_What was that all about?_ I wondered before Caillech called my name.

"Krystal!"

Looking over, I saw the cat standing next to the Tornado, the breeze blowing her fur in the direction of the lake. I stood up, briefly stretched, and jogged over. Turning back toward Silver, I saw him standing by the tree, watching. He started over at a slow gait when I got to the plane, jumping to avoid tripping on a still-sleeping wolf.

Caillech motioned to the aforementioned dozing creature. "What do we do with it?" she asked.

"Well," I replied, "she's slept long enough. She should get up now."

"Yes, she should."

I could sense Silver come up behind us, watching Caillech climb onto the wing. She leaned over the edge, her hair dangling over Aero. After a few seconds, she yelled, "Wake up! Green Day just committed suicide!"

She just groaned and rolled over. "No," she grumbled, "Green Day no die. You say you no say that..."

I was surprised that she didn't freak. Caillech, on the other hand, had a Plan B. She shouted, "Hey! Green Day was just sent to jail!"

Aero's eyes flew open. She jumped up, managed to knock her head on the wing of the plane, and fell onto her knees, rubbing her head. Her pain and confusion made me laugh. All the while she was yelling, "No! Save Green Day! Haylie save Tré Cool!"

After a second, she looked up at the cat. "Come on, Anna. You said you wouldn't do that."

Aero froze. She looked over at me. Instead of laughing, I had a worried expression on my face at that time. "I wasn't supposed to say our real names, was I?" she asked quietly.

"No."

A hand grabbed me and spun me around. _Oh crap, Silver was behind me. He heard everything, he knows who we are, that's not good, that's not good... _I caught sight of his eyes, calming down a bit when I saw they were filled with knowledge of the prophecy and not with anger. He looked me over, glanced at the two girls behind me, and stiffened with realization and shock.

I thought over the situation again. _Maybe that is a good thing._

Eyes wide and surprised, his mouth opened and closed, trying to form words, but he couldn't say anything. Instead of waiting, I said, "I guess you know, huh?"

His mouth closed. Then he managed to utter a quick "Yeah" and got his breath back. "Why didn't you tell me?" he asked, shocked. "I can help."

"I know that, but we can't tell any other mobians that we're humans, nevertheless, prophesied humans in mobian bodies." No sense lying now. "They could blow our cover before we're at full power. If one of us gets killed, that could mean the end of both our worlds. Right guys?" I asked the girls behind me. They nodded.

Silver looked better; relaxed, at the very least. Before he could question me again, I added, "So you see? I've never met you before. I've been living in this world my whole life. Maybe you mistook me for someone else."

His quills dipped as he gave me a quick nod. "Yeah, I probably did."

"Don't tell anyone?"

"Okay."

Caillech helped Aero up, and the four of us walked over to the fire and our friends. The campfire was reduced to smoldering ashes in a makeshift fire pit, but it was still circled by hungry mobians. I sat next to Sora, who had dried off by then, and Luna, who was practicing some spells on a twig. If I had known better, I would of thought she was trying to make a wand to use. Luckily, I did know better and that was what I thought.

Silver surveyed us, either lying down or doing something alone. "Don't you have something to do or eat now?" he asked.

Athena glanced up from her iPod. "Nope," she simply said. "We've been like this for a day and spent none of that time preparing. Hallelujah. What great chosen ones we are."

Hestia gave her a stern look, but I said, "Don't worry. He already knows."

She looked at us hedgehogs, slightly surprised, but nodded silently and went back to a small flame she ignited.

"Oh yeah!" I looked back to see Silver stand up. "I was supposed to come here on a mission."

Seeing my confused expression, he continued, "The guy I met said Iblis was set free in the past. If I stopped the one who released him, then he would never get the chance to destroy my future world."

"Maybe-" I was cut off by rustling in the growth on the edge of our little clearing. We jumped up, fell into battle stances, and waited. With my psychic energy in use, I channeled some Chaos Energy from the Emeralds into my aura, just in case we needed to warp out of there. Where, I don't know. But, like the rest of the country, act first, think and worry later. It wasn't long until a cobalt blue hedgehog darted out and stopped in front of us. He set down four huge plastic bags and huffed. Abigail tripped out of the bushes after him, carrying bags of her own.

"Man," Sonic said, "how hard is it to get food around here? I mean, you have Price Chopper and Brueggers and all, but-"

He was cut short as a shockwave blasted out, throwing him backwards and onto the ground. Silver pushed by me, walking to the blue mobian. He stopped, standing over him, and said, "How fortunate that you came here. Now I don't have to waste time to find you."

Sonic looked up and gave the white threat his trademark grin. "Oh, hey Silver! Mind helping me up?"

A glowing blue hand was raised. The cyan color broke away from his hand and wrapped around Sonic's neck, forming pure energy. It constricted, gagging and lifting the hedgehog into the air. He was helped up a foot higher than he wanted to be, but since it turned out that the helper was choking him, Sonic didn't have time to complain.

"Now let me make this clear," Silver hissed to his victim, watching him struggle and try to pry the psychic hold away from his neck to no avail. "It's no use. Your acts have devastated the future of this world. Because of this, it's time for your trip to Hell, Iblis Trigger."

**I hate the nickname Iblis Trigger, but I had to put it in. It's Silver.**

**I said this chapter was going to be shorter, but it took longer than I expected to write. I've had so much homework, as well as being the manager of a group YouTube account and an Animoto project. Meh.**

**Oh, and for the trips between Emerald locations, I'm thinking of doing a developement chapter for each character, instead of just Krystal narrating each trip. So the next chapter, which will probably be the trip to the third Emerald location, will be about Sora, because her Chaos Emerald was found in this chapter (Edit: Sora's chapter is chapter 11; the next chapter is still from Krystal's point of view.I misjudged the length of the next chapters). If anyone has any complaints/comments about that, tell me, por favor!**

**Also also, I was thinking about writing a quick little oneshot about Sonic and Abby's fun trip grocery shopping and why it took them eight hours. Would anyone like that?**

**Anyway, review please! Always loved!**

**~Silvershadow471**


	10. Leafy Ark

_I forgot that Silver doesn't remember Sonic,_ I thought, watching the ivory hedgehog kill the older, cobalt-colored one. The latter glanced over at me, a startled and nervous look in his emerald green eyes. His tan muzzle started to get a purple hue to it. He was still trying to break the cyan choker around his neck, but Silver seemed to curl his fingers in more, quickening the Iblis Trigger's death.

When Sonic's eyes widened with fear as he realized none of us were stopping the mistaken mobian, I smiled and started counting down, "Five, four, three-"

Aero and Sora broke and fell over into laughing fits. "I guess I was too late," I said to no one in particular, which distracted Silver, who's eyes flickered back at us for a moment in annoyance. His psychic grip slacked enough for Sonic to jump away to the ground, rocket behind me, and flop in the grass, gasping for air.

As the laughter quieted, Silver slowly turned around to face me, annoyed. "Why did you let him live?" Wow, he sounded pissed. "I could have finally rid my world of Iblis, but you're protecting him!"

I gave him a sorry smile. "I'm protecting my friend, Sonic, not the Iblis Trigger. I'm sorry to tell you this, but he isn't the cause of any apocalypse. The only way to get rid of Iblis is for Blaze to send him and herself to another dimension. Sonic didn't do anything wrong."

Silver's mouth was open, exaggerating his look of disbelief. "But… But we were told-"

"He was lying," I broke in. "Trust me on this, though."

After a second, he averted his golden-amber eyes to the ground in defeat. The gasping behind me, which has been gradually getting quieter, stopped. Sonic rose to his feet and dashed next to Silver. "Too bad you don't remember, buddy," he casually said, leaning on the other.

The younger hedgehog picked his head up to look at him, a faint scowl shadowing his face. "Buddy?"

"Yep!" A white grin from Sonic made the scowl deepen. "When I came to this world, fate let me keep my memory of all those fun times, like when I first met you, and you almost killed me. The second time we met, though, …you almost killed me again. But you got kicked in the head! Shads told me that!" Sonic snickered, but a kick in the shin from Silver shut him up.

Continuing a second later, he said, "When you dropped in for the third time, you said, "Circumstances have changed," so we ran off into the sunset to save a princess, even though it was, like, noon or something. Blaze met up with us at some point, too. When the princess died in a really cool fiery explosion, I went through a time portal thing that we opened to the past, and you went wherever little Silvers go.

"Then the world was destroyed, so we fought a giant sun god together with Shads and won! But then there was this big time paradox, so it made it so we never met for that adventure, but we met up two other times. At other points throughout some other days, you showed up for no particular reasons, but you competed with us in a few events. You were really good at curling, actually! It was really fun, except when you beat us, but we've known you for a while after that, so that's all that happened that you can't remember!" he finished with an over-dramatic bow to the group of us. Aero and Sora, still lying on the ground, enthusiastically applauded for him, keeping the laughter to minimum.

"Wait a minute," Luna and Silver said at the same time. The hedgehog glanced over to her and nodded, letting her speak.

"If there was a time paradox, how do you remember the first time you and Silver fought- err, met? And why didn't you tell him this after the events of time distortion?" she asked, cocking her feathered head to look at him.

A blank reaction from the normally quick-to-answer hedgehog was her immediate response. _He's silent for once. Wow_.

"Well," Sonic managed to utter, but he scratched his head and got his cool and collected demeanor back. "I really don't know. Magic?"

Abigail, who had gotten up, walked behind us, and scared the crap out of me, shrugged, saying, "Good enough. Let's eat! I didn't go through all that trouble for nothing!"

For eating on the road and with a budget, it was a pretty good… meal? I can't think of a name, but it was probably somewhere around lunch. Anyway, we mostly had cans of soup and ravioli. Aero was thrilled; according to her, that was "the best combination of foods ever!" Some of us liked it cold and out of the can, while those who didn't heated their meal over the fire with the pan Abigail conveniently bought. As well as canned goods, we had slightly-bruised oranges, apples, canned chili, and hot dogs. Obviously Sonic's idea, since he had two steaming chili dogs in his hands and the evidence of a third on his face within ten minutes.

Silver was holding a chili dog and examining it curiously. "This is food?" he asked.

"Yeah," Hestia answered, taking a bite out of her apple. "I don't like them, though. Have some fruit."

"No, have some ravioli!" Aero jumped in, taking a fork (Abigail was smart enough to get utensils, too; we should send her shopping again), stabbing a ravioli from one of the cans, and thrusting it out to the hedgehog. "Indulge your senses into the wonder that is Chef Boyardee."

He reluctantly took the fork and bit into the wonder. The wonder caused him to gag as he swallowed and shuddered. "I hope that was edible, at least. You guys aren't trying to poison me or anything, right?" He looked hopefully to me, and I shook my head.

"What?" Aero asked in disbelief, her eyes wide. "What kind of sick world do you come from?"

Silver stared at her with a haunting gaze. "A post-apocalyptic Hell-hole resting in the center of a volcanic inferno. A world where we have to fight for our lives every day. One where lives are spared and lost every waking hour. A world that I have to save, and I would have killed the one that I thought was responsible-" he shot an accusatory glance at Sonic, who only had one chili dog left, "if Krystal didn't stop me."

He stood up and snarled at the wolf. "Don't ever call another world sick again."

He started to storm off, but I grab his hand and pulled him back over to our circle. "Everyone here is protective about their beliefs, Silver," I told him. "It was just a joke."

Luna started giggling. She swallowed the mouthful of soup she had and informed the ivory figure, "Yeah, Aero once made a guy cry over the phone because he didn't know who Tré Cool was."

We girls laughed and Athena added, "And you beat a guy unconscious with a bat because he called Bellatrix Lestrange a psychopath!"

"Athena, you claw and beat anyone who doesn't agree with you!" said Sora.

Sonic joined in with the laughter, being done with his food. Silver hastily sat down next to me, crossing his arms expressionlessly.

_Boy, almost as bad as Shadow,_ I thought jokingly as I finished my can of ravioli. A rustle behind me brought my attention to the fox kit that came out of the woods. I waved to him, getting everyone to notice and welcome him; well, Silver just glanced over and closed his eyes, sighing. Tails sighed, too, only with a more content look on his face.

Abigail got up and ran over to him. They talked for a moment, and then walked back into the leafy growth. A minute later, they both walked out with arms full of Tails' findings.

Soon setting the items by Sonic, Tails dropped down next to him, huffing. "Hi," he told us, quickly looking at Abby when she sat down.

"Whatcha got there, little buddy?" Sonic asked, pointing back at the pile.

"Just some stuff I found while you were out. Why did it take so long for you to get lunch?"

Abigail snickered. "Long story, but good for another time. Have something to eat, though!" She held out a can of ravioli for him.

Tails held up his hands and shook his head. "No thanks," he said politely. "Not my taste."

When Aero didn't comment, Silver threw his hands up in disbelief, falling back to lie on the ground. I smiled regretfully and started to peel an orange.

Abigail went through the pile of newfound treasures, separating them into smaller groups. Tails explained to us about what he found between mouthfuls. "There were many strong greens that I picked up," he said. "I want to try to test them for medical purposes, as well as some berries. I found some bits of different kinds of ores, a couple of strange minerals, and- oh!"

Swallowing, he put his can of soup down and rustled through the "plant" pile. "I found something interesting that you might know about, Sonic."

Untying a bundle of leaves, Tails pulled out a circular stone with a hollow center. It looked like a bracelet, split into three segments with three dashes on either side. As he turned it around for us to see, I saw one of the segments had a dim blue plate on the outside and a similar blue circle connecting the other two sections together.

Sonic gasped and snatched it from the fox. "Sweet!" he exclaimed as he slipped it on his wrist. "I love these things!"

"What is it?" asked Caillech.

He smiled and took off the bracelet, flipping and catching it. "It's an Ark of the Cosmos, one of the five gravity-controlling meteorites. We had so much fun with these; too bad you can't remember, little buddy."

"Control gravity?" Tails repeated, eyes widening. "That's amazing! How does it work?"

The hedgehog shrugged. "No clue. I do know that racing Jet with these on Extreme Gear is awesome, though!" He paused and added, "Can you make us some? If we meet up with the Babylon Rouges, I should have a team of trained riders with me."

Tails sighed. "I don't remember what Extreme Gear is, Sonic. Sorry…"

"No worries," I said, throwing my arm in the air to point at the sky in a heroic manor. "To the Internet!"

Pulling out her laptop, Abigail turned it on and started searching, Tails was back to eating, but was watching the screen as well. I don't know how she connected to the Internet, even though I suggested the idea; maybe she had a router with her or something. I don't know! Do you expect me to know these things? Psychics don't know everything, so stop asking!

When lunch was finished and everything was packed, Athena grabbed the Emerald Locator from Tails' tech-y collection. "Where's the next one?" Luna asked.

She pointed to her right. "Off to the east," she answered.

"Aw… That's where we came from," complained Hestia. "Why didn't we go that way first?"

"Maybe there were only two Chaos Emeralds in the United States," I suggested.

"Probably."

While everything and everyone was getting on the biplane, I wandered over to Silver, who was still lying back on the grass. "You coming with us?" I asked, hoping for a yes.

His gold eyes just looked up at me tiredly. "Do you think that would be a good idea?"

"Of course!" I grabbed his hands and pulled him up into a sitting position. "And if you don't think you are, I'll drag you along with us, seeing you don't have anywhere else you can possibly go."

After a second, he wordlessly stood up and walked with me to the Tornado. "Besides," I told him, "we might find Blaze along the way. Who knows how many mobians were sent here!"

Tails had just jumped out of the pilot's seat for Abby, signaling that the plane is set to take off soon. He was settled behind her with the Ark of the Cosmos, tinkering with another metal thing and occasionally glancing at Abby's laptop screen. _Awesome, he's building Extreme Gear!_ I thought with a smile.

Hestia, Luna, Athena, Sora, and Caillech were already on the wings and starting to get comfortable. Aero was bouncing and Sonic was doing his pre-running stretches, soon done and hopping anxiously with the wolf. Luna noticed Silver was coming and asked, "I'm guessing you're going to fly, right?"

He nodded and jumped into the air, hanging until I was up as well. The plane started off, following the two grounded mobians that dashed away. Airborne with lit auras, Silver and I followed.

I could feel the familiar thrill of danger and the cool breeze through my quills. Flying over the trees, I went over to Caillech, who had a map and the Locator. "Where to now?" I asked.

"If I'm right," she glanced up at me, "we're heading to Holland."

"Nice!" Dropping down until I was in front of the other ivory hedgehog, I flipped around and asked, "Wanna race, Silver?"

He smirked. "You're on, Faker!"

"I'm not the Faker! Sheesh, you're more like Shadow than I thought!"

We darted forward, passing the Tornado and its passengers easily. Silver put an early force field up, slowing me. "No fair!" I cried, watching him fly off. Clenching my fists, it was my turn to smirk. I still had Chaos Energy in my aura.

"Chaos Control!"

_This is gonna be a fun trip._

**So sorry for the long wait. Unlike many people, I still have school for **_**two more weeks!**_** Oh noes! I have had projects, homework, studying, YouTube work, Animoto work, beating a copy of SA2 I've managed to get, reading other fanfics, etc. This is actually the first half of the chapter, but writing the second half would delay the update even longer.**

**I'm going to try to incorporate characters, items, and themes from all of the games, even though I haven't played Riders, Rivals, '06, Rush Adventure, SA1, or Advance. I'll get the info from somewhere, though. If I miss anything major or get it wrong, please tell me; that'll help a lot later on!**

**Muchos**** gracias for all the support! So glad people like this fic! Many thanks!**

**~Silvershadow471**


	11. Three, Two, One, Action!

I watched Silver and Krystal dart around and under the Tornado, laughing and having fun. They looked cute together, but they looked so alike that it was kind of creepy.

Grabbing Abigail's bag, I pulled out the camera and shot a few pics out of boredom: One of the two racing hedgehogs, one of Tails working on the Extreme Gear (whatever that was), a few of the other mobians on the plane, and a blurry one of Sonic and Aero on the ground. The last one just came out as blue and purple dashes on the green scene.

Caillech noticed what I was doing and asked, "Want me to take your picture, Sora?"

"Oh, pictures!" Athena jumped in, dropping her conversation and moving over to me. I laughed and handed over the camera, taking my own pose next to the tigress. A snapshot here, another with Hestia added, yet another with Luna; actually, multiple pictures of our group.

"Hey, Abby?" I asked, tugging on her shoulder.

"Hm?"

"Can you record us for a few minutes?"

"...Sure," she reluctantly agreed. I wouldn't have let her say no either way, and she knew that. Sticking her pen in the notebook, she closed it up, took the camera, and started rolling.

"Good afternoon to y'all," said Caillech to the lens. "To those of you that are watching this video, we feel very, very sorry for you."

Luna poked her head on screen and repeated, "Very..." for exaggeration.

"Mmm, exactly," the cat continued, "and you may be wondering why we look like this."

Off-screen, Hestia shot her a warning look, but Caillech just smiled. "Well," she said, "our friend loves the Sonic the Hedgehog series so much that she got us to compete in one of those nerdy competitions. We had to make the best and most realistic costume of a fan-made character to win."

I moved onscreen for a second and nodded for added affect.

"First, I call my character Caillech after the goddess of nature and such in multiple cultures. She is a cat that can control the earth and use plant life to help with tasks. To prove it," she added, holding out her hand, "I will call upon leaves and make them blow across my hand."

The wind gradually started to get stronger as it blew her hair, fur, and dress with it. I never noticed it before, but the green spot near her right eye glows when she uses her abilities. _Weird._

A leaf blew into range and fell onto her hand, quickly being swept away again by the breeze.

_That was it?_ I thought, swiveling around to see if there were anymore flying plants. My yelp of shock was cut short when my mouth was stuffed full with leaves. They were practically blinding us; there were so many!

When the hurricane of green plant life was over, I looked around at everyone. Tails and Abigail were unharmed, though Abby had a leaf or two in her hair. Luna was just sitting up, a bit dazed. Athena spat out an oak leaf unhappily and glared at Caillech, who was clutching a clump of rounded leaves from a bush of some sort with her outstretched hand. Hestia held up one of the leaves, annoyed, and burned it between her fingers, releasing the ashes over the side of the biplane.

"And there you have it, folks!" Caillech finished, bowing to the screen and grabbing Luna. "I have shown you my working costume, and I know that my friends won't appreciate another magic act, so let's introduce my other mobian-dressed friends."

The raven smiled and let her feline friend move to the side, so she could get the center stage.

"Hello!" she said cheerfully to the camera. "I call my character Luna the Raven, the Sorceress-" Abigail realized what she was going to say and gave her the 'stop or you're dead' cut across her neck. She looked over to Tails, making sure he was too immersed in his work to notice.

Nodding, Luna added, "Or as I like to call her, the Sorceress of Death. You see, I am a Goth. Being a Goth, I like Harry Potter and stuff, and so why am I in a Sonic-related competition? I play video games as well. And now, I will demonstrate my magic by adding Bellatrix-like humor in the mix."

I gulped as her gaze fell on me. "Sora?" she asked with a dark, scary voice.

"No!" I screamed, trying to back away; then I remembered we were on an airplane. Scrambling forward to avoid slipping off the wing, I tried to jump onto the other wing by getting on the tail and over to the other side. Boy, was I a poor planner.

Luna pulled out the stick she had found at the lake from a pocket in her pants. I didn't even know she had pockets, but everything on her, except her eyes and jewelry, was black, so I could of missed that detail.

"Imperio!" she cried, flicking her wand (I guess that's what it was now) toward me in a silvery-white flash.

_Oh crap,_ I thought before my mind flooded with warmth, making my body relax. I was stopped in my tracks, not being able to move with my numb limbs.

I could hear Luna's voice in my head, controlling my thoughts. _Turn around and come to me_, she commanded my body to do.

Soon, I was done with escaping and kneeling in front of the smirking raven. "There you have it, folks!" she cheerfully told the camera and a laughing human. "With this mobian costume and mobian magic, I did not need to say the Harry Potter spell, but I like it better with a touch of Death Eater."

I could see everything, and it made me so annoyed and ashamed. Apparently Harry was able to break the spell, so I tried to break away from her bindings set on me. Inwardly sighing, I thought, _This isn't working._

_Of course it works!_ replied another, more boyish thought of mine, like it was pretending I was conversing with Little Annoying Magic Boy.

I snapped back, _Face it, dude; there's no escape from magic._

I heard laughing from Luna; she must have heard me. "And now I will explain my favorite saying ever!"

She got closer to the camera, leaving me on my knees while all of the other mobians on board giggled. Wagging a finger, Luna said, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me- Crucio!"

_Oh sh-_ I started to think before pain flared up from my back, causing me to scream, fall onto the wing of the plane, and flail in agony. _Of course, now she gives me my body back…_

I screamed again as it felt like an inferno ignited inside me and fired needles into my skin, stabbing every nerve I had. Tails finally looked up and was struck with a horrified expression, but Abby waved him away when he started to say something, smiling with her friends.

Luna flicked her wrist and bowed, cutting off all magic with another silver-white flash. I lay on the ground, shivering and breathing heavily. "Don't...do that. Again," I managed to say quietly to Luna.

_That was the worst experience of my life._ I didn't really pay attention to Hestia and Athena doing their performances. All I remembered was that Athena made a gold sword out of air or something, and Hestia lit a huge fire in her hand that was potentially dangerous to the well being of the biplane we were on a few hundred or thousand feet up.

When I realized it was my turn, I was over the initial shock of being tortured and controlled. I jumped up, falling in place in front of the camera. "Hello, y'all!" I said to the future audience and Abigail with a smile. "As you saw, I don't like being controlled by magic, so my character, Sora-"

Hestia poked her head onscreen and loudly whispered, "Swimmy!"

Pushing her head away, I continued, "Sora is an otter that can control the forces of water. To demonstrate this, I will need some water." I leaned over the side of the wing and quickly scanned the area. Below us was a long, thin stream of crisp, blue water. I reached toward it, tapping into my 'nature sense,' as I called it; doing so flared my hand up with a sapphire blue glow. I thought it looked kind of cool. I felt I connected with the water after a second and streamed it up to the Tornado. I guess I could do that because of my freelance personality, as Krystal would say. Something about how my energy can flow far and fast, and it could join and manipulate similar energies, like water, or something along those lines.

Anyhoo, I turned back to the camera again. "Now, because Luna so kindly volunteered me to be her test victim, I will use her as a subject." I grabbed her with my still-luminescent hand and pulled her onscreen.

She waved to the invisible and not-currently-existent audience, confused. "Hi?"

Inwardly telling the water below to come to me, I started to explain my plan of the demonstration: "First off, come hither, water!"

I held out my hand, collecting gallons of water in a giant, teardrop-shaped form. It was a bit sparkly, refracting the glow from my hand inside it. I didn't admire it for long, since I said soon after, "Now to control the water enough so it forms a solid object and can bind this raven next to me."

Before anyone could object, I told the blue liquid to solidify by bringing my fingers together, throwing the finished product around Luna as a whip-like-chain thing. Her arms were bound next to her sides and quickly froze together when the water hardened into ice. "What?" she asked, surprised.

She struggled a bit while I talked. "Now, I could win against an enemy this way, or I can drown her, like this."

I snapped two of my fingers as well as I could with gloves on (it really wasn't necessary, but it's good for show), causing the ice to spread over her figure. She cried out, but her beak was frozen shut, bringing silence.

"I can let her die from hypothermia, or I can melt the ice, which will result in her drowning in the resulting water bubble."

I snapped open my hand, releasing the tight bond on the particles in the ice, so it melted into water. I let it drench her instead of drown her; that would be too mean.

With dripping feathers, Luna shook her hands, her mouth open slightly in disbelief. "You just did that to me," she slowly said, turning her head up to me. "I can't believe you just did that to me. Me!"

I held out my hand, stopping her. "Now," I continued to the camera, which made her even angrier, "I can tell Luna here to walk to my left side and she'll do it." I had pointed down on my lonely side while I talked and motioned for her to come.

The raven crossed her black arms, held her beak in the air, and curtly said, "No." Even with that said and done, she strolled over to the designated spot. Her eyes flew open as she glanced between me and her feet in shock. "Wha- wait, what?"

I shot a grin to the camera (Gotta look good for the fans, ya know?) and began to explain how my magical powers of teleportation worked: "I can direct the flow of water with my thoughts and feelings. If I tell some to go there, it'll go there. Because Luna, my lovely volunteer girl bird person, has water on her skin and between her feathers, I am controlling the water on her, not her body. She is able to stay conscious and in partial control, but if I tell water to go down-" I jerked my hand downward with another flicker of light, causing Luna to fall onto her knees with a gasp, "it will go down, even if it has to bring an obstacle with it. Such is water, I guess!"

I finished with a bow, which accidentally made Luna try to bow as well, but she failed and fell over face-down. With a growl, she pushed herself up and glared my way, with what looked like hatred in her violet eyes.

I laughed and patted her head, probably making her temper get dangerously high. "You're not mad at me, silly! I'm not mad at you for taking my self-control! We're even now."

She sprung up, put a damp hand around my neck, and whispered, "I don't _get_ even."

Sighing, I pushed her away, diminishing the moisture in her feathers to evaporation. "Fine, you win," I said. "You're no fun."

Caillech stepped in between us and ended our video with, "Now that our presentations are over, we will say our farewells and hope for the best in that, uh...contest. Sayonara!"

"Bye!"

"Ciao!"

Even Luna waved to the camera, a faint smile on her face, as Abigail stopped recording and broke down laughing. "That was so pointless!" she said between breaths. "Now I'm all jealous that you can do those things!"

"Ha ha, yeah..." I giggled.

_At least I understand my abilities more._

"What's with all the yelling?" I spun around, a bit freaked at her sudden comment, and tripped. I managed to not plummet to my doom, but I put my foot out, and it passed through her white form. Like mist, the figure rippled and disappeared without a trace. "Aw!" the same voice cried from behind me, disappointed.

"Krystal, what did you come up with this time?" I asked as I twisted around yet again. The hedgehog was sitting on the tail of the plane, juggling her purple Chaos Emerald between her hands.

"I figured out how to make Chaos Energy form realistic animations," she replied casually, "but apparently any contact with solid matter destroys it. What I want to know is why I could hear you a few hundred feet away."

"Well," Hestia answered, clapping her hands together, "we got bored, and there was a camera..."

"Uh-huh."

"I think we all learned to use our abilities better, though," added Caillech from the side.

Krystal nodded. "Okay, fine; practice is good. Just be careful so no humans see that or hear you."

Athena deftly answered, "Yeah, yeah," for us and broke away to get her iPod.

Since we knew that meant the discussion was over, the white hedgehog sparked up her aura and, very scarily, conjured up two copies of herself, one on each edge of the wings. She saw my freaked expression and shrugged. "Hey, it might come in handy some day. When it does, I want to be ready and practiced." With that said and done, she stood up, gave us a little wave, and dove backwards off the plane with her dopplegängers.

Before I could even think about relaxing after the stress of being controlled by your best friend with no soul and the shock of three flying hedgehog triplets, two of which don't exist, jumping off your plane, Tails cried out, "Finished!"

Abigail twisted around to see him surrounded by metals and tools and holding what looked like a futuristic blue snowboard. The side was covered with a darker, navy-blue color, and the metal plate on the top surface was a light gray. Closing the laptop, she proceeded to point out the obvious like many people would do now by asking, "You're done with the Extreme Gear already?"

"Yep!" he replied, his white muzzle upturned in a smile. "It wasn't too hard to make, actually. First, I-"

"Yeah," I cut him off. We didn't have the attention span for mechanics. "Interesting. I'm sure we want to hear this, but what I want to hear is: How can someone ride that?" I mean, look at it! It looked like a fat skateboard without wheels and with what looked like a cooling engine on the back! Is it supposed to float or something?

The kit laid the board in front of us and started to clean up his tools. "As far as I learned while making it, Extreme Gear runs off of air."

"Air?" Hestia asked, actually interested. "No wonder your world is so perfect; Earth people burn too much fuels and are killing everything in their daily routines."

"Global warming…" added Caillech slowly in a ghostly tone.

"...Okay, wow. But anyway, a full air tank depletes over time, because the air is used to push against the air in the surrounding space. Doing so causes the board to hover. More air that needs to be moved, like during turns and boosts, uses more fuel. To fill up the tank again, tricks are preformed to-"

"Got it!" I interrupted. "It floats; that's good enough! How does the Ark thing work with it?"

"And please, no long explanations," the cat added again.

Tails sighed and put a few handfuls of screws into a box. "Sonic said that it can defy gravity, so it makes it fly, I guess."

"Short, sweet, and to the point! I like it!" I reached out and gripped the sides of the metal-like board. For being fueled by air, it was heavier than I thought when I picked it up. "So," I asked, anxious to try it out, "when can I give it a go?"

"Well-" _Bang!_

"Ah!" I yelped as I was blown back. Before my back hit the wing, I felt weightless and stopped. A flash of green passed between me and Athena, who was across from me and also suspended in mid-fall. As soon as it started, it passed. I landed on the wing with an _oomph_, my head hanging off the edge. A shot of green in the corner of my eye got me up and alert. "What was that?"

"The Ark of the Cosmos!" cried Tails, looking over the side with Luna. I leaned over with them, wide-eyed. Sure enough, I saw through gaps in the leaves a green figure dashing away, leaving a bright green trail. Close behind were two more figures, one painted in violet, the other clad in gray and orange. And they were heading away from us, fast.

"They took it?" asked Athena. "How?"

"I don't know. Maybe one of them has an Ark as well. But look!" he cried, pointing at a speeding blue streak. "Sonic's faster than them!"

Within seconds, Sonic was ahead of the trio, followed by Aero in purple. Two lighter blue figures darted out from under the Tornado and gave chase from the air. One paused and doubled back, stopping next to us on the wing. "They're the Extreme Gear racers Sonic talked about, in case you didn't know," Silver told us, looking a little angered. "They already have an Ark, yet they steal from us. The nerve of some people..."

"Won't Sonic get it back?" Abigail asked.

Silver shook his head, turned around, and leaned back with a sigh. "While Sonic is faster on the ground, they can out-maneuver him in the air. So much for the Great Sonic the Hedgehog."

"Be nice," scolded Caillech, gently whacking his shoulder.

I saw the trio easily go around Sonic and Aero and head back our way, making at least 250 miles per hour. I felt the darker, tomboyish side of me flare up in my chest; I grinned. Clutching the board tighter, I stood up and, before logical thinking came to mind, jumped.

I faintly heard someone call my name as the wind rushed past my ears and face. I then realized that it was very stupid to jump off a plane without a parachute or flying powers. I spread my arms out anyway and enjoyed the feeling of wind through my fur. When it was blown back the right way, it felt like the water against my skin during my last swim tournament.

I would say it was neck-and-neck between my competitor and me, but that would sound stupid; it wasn't nearly that close. I was so far behind and losing. The reason: I don't actually know. I used to swim so well, like my body could cope with the liquidness of the...liquid. I knew how to handle well in it. I was the master, and I always won the battle. But then, when she was a little way ahead of me, I panicked. I tried more outrageous strokes, as if to make the water propel me forward, but it made things worse. I couldn't move ahead at all, and when I finally calmed down, she was ahead and certain to win. I didn't have the motivation to try anymore, so I just swam to the end halfheartedly. Embarrassed and shamed tension accompanied me on my trip home. I couldn't even act well in my own element...

Freefalling through the sky was so much like that. After the initial excitement, I felt I was going faster, and I couldn't control it. I started to struggle a bit and tried to gain the upper hand, but I think I made it worse. My eyes tearing from the sharp wind, I shut them tight and tried to keep a good grip on the board, but it was getting harder and harder as I fell.

_Why did I jump again?_ I asked myself, since being depressed about it wouldn't help at all.

_I wanted some action._

_I was anxious to try out Extreme Gear riding._

_I wanted to be like the riders who stole the Ark._

_I want to get our Ark of the Cosmos back._

_I want to go fast._

_I don't know?_

_Ground's getting close…_

I went with my last two thoughts with a shrug for the sake of my existence and flipped in the air; I had random mood swings at times. I felt my fur get covered with something that felt like melted chocolate and glanced at my arm. A blue fabric was crawling down to my wrist and formed a thin sleeve. I quickly looked myself over and saw that my dress (Holy crap, I forgot I was wearing one!) had "melted" into blue racing clothes, complete with a ocean blue shirt and jacket, snug navy blue pants, and indigo sneakers. "Okay, that wasn't expected," I muttered to myself, but I accepted that strange fact and kicked the tip of the board. It spun out of my hand, stopping when my feet hit the metal plate on the top. It acted like a magnet, keeping my feet on its surface. I spun around, laughing again. "Wahoo! Yeah!"

With a rustle, I saw the bushes break open for a green figure to dash by almost directly below me. I wanted to swerve to the right; to my amazement, a tilt of my feet swiftly hooked my movement the right way. I tried to turn to the left, fall forward faster, back flip, everything, and it all worked with a simple movement. I could do anything, and it'll work... It was... was...

"Oh yeah!"

Since I was close to the ground by then, the green guy heard me and looked up. He had an Ark of the Cosmos on his wrist and another one, the one I guessed was ours, in his hand. I swerved to the right, bent my knees, and shot forward, streaking the tree tops with teal. I pulled out of the attack at the last second, hitting him with the side of the board, and grabbed the Ark in his hand. He fell off his board, his fingers slipping off the stone, as well. I sped forward and away, sliding the Ark on my left wrist.

"Now how does this thing work?" I asked the air, turning my arm. I tried to keep from hitting anything, but being in the woods didn't help at all. I had to go back and forth, jump over logs and the occasional animal, everything that an expert should do. Maybe it was just me, but I was pretty sure I just started riding three minutes ago.

Anyway, Tails said tricks needed to be preformed to keep the fuel levels high, so I kept my knees bent for a while, kicked my back foot down, and shot forward. A fallen tree loomed into sight and quickly got closer. With a grin, I jumped, reaching at least fifteen feet, maybe more. A flip and 360 later, I caught a glimpse of purple from the trees as I dropped into a landing. As soon as I leaned forward to boost off the earthy ground, the second of the three figures darted out, hitting the side of my board so it flipped out from under me. I landed on the side of my foot, so I gave up trying to stand and fell over, because a broken foot would just ruin my day.

I glared up at the purple figure as she stepped off her board. I was angered a little, but I wanted to talk first.

She reached down, picked up her orchid board, and tucked it under her arm. "Well, look what we have here," she said in a mocking tone.

"Why did you attack me, miss?" I asked her very politely.

She sighed. "Look kid, it's not nice to steal, especially when you take something that you don't even know the name of." She held out her gloved hand expectantly. "For that reason, I'll be taking it back."

"Stealing?" I stood up to match her glare, holding my board with my left hand and covering the Ark on my wrist with the other. "You stole the Ark of the Cosmos from me! I was taking it back, since you guys have one of the five already!"

Her hand dropped, and she said, harsh, "So now you think you're the smart one, huh? Just hand over the Ark, kid, and no one gets hurt."

_Man, she's nice,_ I thought, but before I could think of a comeback, I heard beeping, and the red spot on her right glove blinked on.

"Wave, Jet isn't answering. Did you get the Arks yet?" a vaguely familiar voice asked impatiently through what I guessed was a communicator of some sort.

She turned her back to me and replied, "Stop it with the rush, Egghead! Let me make this clear: The only reason we're collecting the Arks is to bring them to Babylon Garden so we can transport ourselves away from this world and back home. In no way are we going to help you with anything else!"

On the other side, Eggman chuckled. "Ah, but isn't that for Jet to decide? And he already decided that your team will repay me in some way."

"Look, buddy, we can do this without your help!"

"You may want to reconsider that. In this new world, your kind don't fit in. There are gaps and oceans all over the map that are impassable on foot. You don't even know if Babylon Garden is here or not. The only person that will be willing to help you is myself. Now that that was cleared up, what do you have to say, Miss Wave?"

After a silent moment, Wave sighed and asked, "What exactly do you want?"

"Well, while I don't want to interrupt and ruin your current mission of finding the Arks of the Cosmos, if you find any Chaos Emeralds, I want you to get them for me. If you find Sonic, get him as close as dead as you can, so I may finally finish him off when we meet again. And if you find any of his friends, capture them and bring them to my base. That blue pest will do anything to save his poor buddies." He started his evil-bent laugh or whatever when Wave interrupted him.

"And that's all you want us to do?"

"That's not too much for the Babylon Rouges, is it?" he asked her in his smug voice.

"Of course not!" she answered, standing straighter with her feet apart. "It'll be a simple side-mission, one that will be for short-lived entertainment more than anything!"

"Good. Get to it, then. I'll be expecting another report at sundown." With that said, I heard a click, and Wave turned back around to face me.

"Now," she said, "I am going to guess that you are friends with this Sonic, correct?"

"Um...well...acquaintances, at best." I really didn't know what to say to that. The term 'rogue' doesn't sound very, I don't know, friendly-like.

"How about we make a deal then?" I shook my head frantically, but the swallow continued anyway. "I don't want to kill Sonic, despite what Eggy says. Blue Boy and his buddies are the only competition we have, and without any competition, I have to do everything to get things done, because Jet and his pet Storm don't do anything when they think they're the best. Therefore, if you give me the Ark so we can get back to our world, you can run off. I'll take any Chaos Emeralds you have, as well."

"See, the problem with that plan is that I don't want to give you the Ark or our Chaos Emeralds." I started to back away, but the crazy girl just stared at me, waiting.

"Oh, 'our,' huh? There are more of you brats?"

"Hey!"

"Hi!" I yelped when I was thrown back by Sonic and the green figure, who I guessed was Jet, when they burst out of the surrounding wood. Sonic stopped by where I tripped and helped me up, while Jet continued through to the other side of the path on his board. Sonic was smiling, and asked me, "Sora, what're you doing here?"

"Well, Wave and I were having a little discussion, and now I think I should go," I stepped on my board to dart off, but Wave did the same, never taking her cobalt blue eyes off me.

"Then I'll see you out, Sora."

By then, I kind of caught on to the fact that she hated me.

Jet had also realized that Sonic wasn't racing him anymore and had turned around, coming back through the cluster of trees. "Too much for you, hedgehog?" he squawked (Seriously, he sounded like a squawking chicken; it was annoying! Wasn't he a hawk or something?).

Sonic leaned on me, his hand on my shoulder. "Hey," he whispered, "you think I could use the Extreme Gear for a while?"

"Hmm... No, not really." I glared over at Wave. "Doesn't Wave have something important to tell Jet, though?"

"Important, huh?" Jet looked toward Wave, who was silently gritting her teeth. "Well?"

I barely swerved away from the _crack_ that sounded as yet another figure stumbled onto the path. He barely managed to stay standing with his large gray and white body. His beady eyes scanned the area until they stopped on Jet. "Hey Boss!" he yelled in a not-so-smart-sounding voice. "Good news!"

"News?" Jet stepped off his board and crossed his arms, waiting.

"Well, uh, here might not be the best place-"

"What is it, Storm?" Jet snapped, impatient.

Storm took a stepped back and stuttered, "Uh, well, on a radio report, a, um, a sighting of a glowing blue rock has been sighted in some place called Brazil."

"Another Ark of the Cosmos, huh?" He put his foot on his board and shook his head. "Guess we're back to searching in someplace we don't know about again. Where are we going now?"

Sonic jabbed my back lightly and quietly walked off. I nodded and followed, trying to be as quiet and inconspicuous on an Extreme Gear board as possible. A good bit behind us, I heard Jet ask Wave, "So where's that Ark that you were supposed to get back?"

"Oh snap!" I muttered as I slammed my back foot down, hitting top speed to get away as fast as possible. Sonic had looked back at the noise and sped up when I dashed by him. He could obviously go faster than me, like Silver had said, but he kept at the same speed as me.

After a few turns, jumps, flips, and tricks, Sonic commented, "You're pretty good so far."

"Thanks. It's not too hard, actually."

"Have you tried out the Ark of the Cosmos yet?"

"No."

He disappeared in a flash of cobalt blue and reappeared a second later, running backwards in front of me. "Okay, the Ark can be activated two different ways. One way is to slide your first two fingers down the bluish panel on the outside of it. The other, easier way is to give your wrist a flick. Simple. Now, we're at the top of a hill, and there's a steep drop about a hundred yards ahead of us. At the edge, jump, activate the magic of the stone, slam down your back foot and bang! You're flying at top speed!"

I saw some open sky ahead of us and felt hesitant. "Wait, how fast is top speed? And how-"

"And go!" He jumped up and over me as the trees broke away to an open cliff. His foot hit the back of my board, boosting it into a jump into a leap, leaving me in open air. Frantically trying to save myself, I snapped my wrist. My eyes were met by a spark, and soon a flash, of cyan, which was why I turned my head away and saw the ground so far below.

I wasn't falling.

Time wasn't stopped, but it felt that way to me, being suspended in the middle of the vast sky above a textured green valley. My gaze fell back on the luminous rock around my arm, which I was meant to believe could control the forces of gravity.

I was a blue otter on a hover board with complete control over the forces of water, so a rock couldn't possibly be more of a surprise. I sunk lower on my board, slammed down my back foot, and bang! I was flying at top speed! It was like when I was falling, with the wind pasting my fur and ears down and causing me to squint my eyes, but it was faster, and I could move in any direction, not just downward.

I grinned as wide as I could and laughed. "This is awesome!" I yelled to the world. I didn't know where I was going, but who cares. Early on in my flight, I had to carry my board instead of riding it to go even faster.

_Faster..._

I stopped, and quite quickly, actually; I went from, like, 450 or so to zero in less than a second. I was a bit thrown off and tripped, but soon I was okay and standing in the air. I just then realized something: _I'm the ruler of all water, and thus can have it obey me instead of my actions having to be within its laws. I can go anywhere on land with this Extreme Gear at speeds no human can reach on foot, skateboard, or snowboard, and one tiny motion can do _what_ I want, _when_ I want, _where_ I want. Now, with the Ark, I can go _anywhere_ I want in the air at _any_ time, despite something called 'physics' and 'laws of gravity.'_

"Oh yeah, I'm on top of the world, baby!"

I spotted Krystal off to the left. She must have seen me, too, since she was next to me in a streak of blue. "You got the Ark back?" she asked the oh-so-obvious question.

"Yep," I answered with the oh-so-obvious answer. "But look, Krystal! Even without wings, I can-"

"Don't go there!" she broke in, holding up her hand. There was a small smile on her face, so I didn't question her. Changing the subject, she asked, "What happened to your clothes?"

"I don't really know, but- Whoa!" It felt like the invisible floor I was standing on vanished and left me to fall. I twisted my hand around, but the glow from the Ark died away, leaving it a powerless rock again.

_Thanks a lot._ I spread my arms out and fell, closing my eyes and sighing. _I've got a strange feeling that this isn't the last time._

Firm hands closed around my arms and slowed my descent. My feet soon landed on the ground without a bone-jarring impact, and I dropped the board on a patch of grass by Krystal's shoe.

That particularly speedy hedgehog that just happens to be everywhere for everything showed up again, smashing through the undergrowth and tripping over the Extreme Gear. He pushed himself up after a second, rubbing his head, and hopped in place when he saw me. "I almost forgot," he informed me. "The Ark's powers run out after a while, so you have to come down or plummet down at some point."

"Gee, thanks."

I jumped, startled, as an upbeat electronic tune broke the air. I tried to find where it came from, and I found Krystal with a small grin of pure bliss on her face, humming along with the song. After a few seconds of watching the younger mobian with worry, she laughed and said, "I always feel happy when I hear this song; I don't really know why, though." She quietly sang along with the last part of the chorus and brought her wrist up, pressing one of the black buttons on the silver watch with her other hand. "Yo."

"Krystal," I heard Abigail say over the video chat, "you and- wait, 'yo?'"

"Yeah, as in 'hello,' 'hi,' 'hola.' What up?"

"I think you should get Sora and Sonic and come over here."

I stepped behind Krystal and waved to the camera. "Hi Abby!"

She looked surprised when Sonic's head popped over my shoulder as well, but she continued. "Look, we're about a mile north of you, in the mountains. Krystal, you might be able to figure out where this signal is coming from. Try tapping the screen."

"Okay..." A tap on the screen later, Abigail's face faded away, revealing a green grid with a lime green map behind it. Two dots blinked into existence, one bright cerulean, the other a light maroon. The maroon dot was almost directly above what I guessed was our location, and it was faintly pulsing, from dark to lighter to darker. "I think we know where you are. We'll be there in a few minutes."

"Copy that," Abigail's voice said from behind the map. "See you at the discovery site."

"Discovery site?" asked Krystal, curious, but Abigail had already hung up. "Discovery site, huh? Well, no sense hanging around here!" She clapped her hands together, igniting her aura like a magic trick. "Let's head out!"

She and Sonic dashed off in different shades of blue (there's been a lot of blue on this trip so far), leaving me to pick up the board and start jogging. When a fallen tree trunk got close, I threw the Extreme Gear into the air, jumped off the log into a flip, landed on the magnet-like surface, slammed down my back foot and bang! I was off, racing along at top speed as soon as I hit the ground. I quickly got up to the hedgehogs and easily got into the lead. By some point of logic that I was unaware of, that meant I was challenging the others to a race, because after that, everything was going a lot faster with competitive tension in the air.

* * *

After a few minutes, Krystal dropped to the ground. I passed her and kept going for a while, but swerved around and went back, confused. She was studying her watch, glancing up and around every so often. Sonic appeared behind me, appeared over next to her, and then disappeared through some bushes, the only clue being some twitching leaves.

I stepped off my board, picked it up, and walked over. After a few seconds, I felt my clothes melt into the blue dress I had before. _Weird. So weird._

Krystal glanced up when I got close, looked me over, and asked, "What's up with the outfits?"

I shrugged. "Maybe the material's water-based, so I can-"

"Okay, lost interest." she interrupted. I nodded, and she pointed to where Sonic disappeared to. "It says that the others are over there."

I took off in a run, breaking through the bushes and going up a hill. After a minute, the plants gave way to a grassy clearing. I saw the Tornado by some trees, Caillech on the ground, sleeping, and Sonic waving to me from the top of-

I gasped and scanned the area again, wide-eyed. _I might be at the top of the world,_ I thought as I looked around, _but I have _a lot _to learn…_

Going back a few steps, I turned and called down the hill to Krystal, who was almost half-way up. "Hey Krystal, you're smart."

She paused, looking up at me. "...Sure?"

"Well..." I wondered how to ask her without giving it away. "Were there any ancient tribes or civilizations around this area?"

She stared at me for a moment and kept climbing. "Like what?"

"I don't know, like the Aztecs?"

"Aztecs? The Aztecs lived down around Mexico. Those kinds of peoples were down south. Why?"

"Well..."

She got to the top and walked over to me. We went to the clearing I was in earlier, and she looked around. Soon her jaw dropped in a silent gasp. Sonic was in front of us in an instant, grinning. "Man, Krystal," he told her, putting his hand on her shoulder. "I don't know how much stuff you teleported here with that crazy Chaos Control of yours, but you're strong enough to rival Shadow!"

He took a step back and held his arms out. "Krystal, Sora, welcome to Mystic Ruins."

**Another long wait, ugh! Sorry! I foolishly decided to write this chapter on my iPod, which takes longer to type, but it's easier to transport and write on the go. Plus I had the last two weeks of school, finals, a Tae Kwon Do test, my brother's Tae Kwon Do test, a week of a photography course, and just rest in general. If I get a copy of SA1 tomorrow like I want to, I'll be taking some time to beat that in the coming weeks, too. There was going to be another small part at the end of this chapter, so it ended when they get to the coast, but this Tuesday is the haven't-updated-in-a-month-mark for a new chapter, and I feel more than a month is too long to go without an update.**

**I have a new poll on my profile, and I would like everyone who can (everyone who has a user on this site) to vote, because I'm trying to figure out how long I'm going to make a story I'm writing. It would help a lot! :)**

**I'm going to be off for a week towards the end of July (I think I'm leaving the 25****th****, but I'm not sure yet). I'm going on a trip with my friends, and there's no Internet again. Just to put that out in case I don't get another chapter up by then.**

**And lastly, Happy Fourth of July to those of us who live in the U.S. and/or those who celebrate this day for any reason! Love your feedback, guys! Thank you!**

**~Silvershadow471**


	12. News Reports

I watched the two girls exchange looks of surprise. Sora whispered something, and Krystal nodded. They looked back to me, and the white hedgehog asked, "So you're saying I brought Tails' workshop, the Echidna's temple, and everything else to this world without even knowing it?"

"Looks like it," I replied with a smile. I was surprised about it, too, but what other answer was there?

"But what about the jungle that was around the temple? And what about the pool and the waterfall?" She looked confused, but at least she wasn't as confused as the others were most of the time. She did her research before hand, though it's sometimes mildly disturbing that a stranger knows almost as much about you and your world as you do.

I shrugged. "Maybe they're somewhere else. Anyway, the others are in the workshop, waiting." I dashed off, running up the steps and through the door. Tails' place always reminded me of an old log cabin from the south or something. He had a rug in the middle of the main room, a few dark-colored chairs, a wooden couch with cream-colored cushions, a TV, and many little electronic things on shelves, tables, and pretty much everywhere you looked. The kitchen was small and off to the corner, with only a refrigerator, an oven, and a bunch of drawers and cabinets. Two other doors led off to the other rooms and his most important half of his house: the workshop. Yep, Tails really was one-of-a-kind.

Aero glanced up from the floor when I came in. She and Caillech were lying on the rug, while the other female mobians were in the chairs or on the couch; Abigail and the owner of the domain were discussing something in the kitchen. "Are the others behind you?" the wolf asked me, referring to Krystal and Sora.

I nodded as they walked through the door. Sora stopped and looked around, a low whistle coming from her lips. "Nice place," she commented.

"I know," said Hestia as she made room on the couch, "but look what was on the news! Athena, rewind it."

The tigress looked around for the remote, and Sora sat down on the couch. Krystal leaned back and crossed one leg over the other, reclining on the air. I settled to sitting with my back against the bookshelf that Athena found the remote on. The program was rewound two minutes or so to a reporter lady. "As for our main story," she said, "chaos reigns supreme in the eastern part of the state as it is revealed that some people disguised as video game characters vandalized private property, murdered state officials, and kidnapped eight preteen to teenaged girls." A picture came up of the school, half of it in good condition and half in ruins. "The full story's coming up next."

The otter was staring at the screen with wide eyes. "Oh God," she whispered to herself. Krystal looked mildly surprised as well, but she shrugged it off. Athena skipped through the commercials to the furthest point, but it was still on its commercial break.

"Sonic?" Tails tapped my shoulder to get my attention. I twisted around to look at him, and he jabbed a thumb towards one of the doors on the side. "I'm going to go to the workshop to finish something up. Don't destroy too much in here."

"No worries, lil' bro." I patted his back and smiled. He dipped his head, returned the grin, and walked off to do more mechanic stuff.

I crossed my arms behind my head and listened to the girls talk. Sora repeatedly asked why they were on the television, and Caillech and Hestia were trying to get the idea that they were now missing Americans through to her. "B-But," she stuttered, looking back and forth between the echidna and the feline, "our teachers said there was no school for the rest of the week! We're supposed to be absent from that torture!"

"That was for school," Hestia explained slowly while rolling her eyes. "This is for our families and the rest of the state."

"Besides," added Caillech, "we're probably going to be gone for a lot longer than a week. Now stop complaining; we are missing people now and we can't let anyone find us like this." Sora stared at her for another moment, but turned back to watch the television screen with the same disbelieving and annoyed expression.

Everyone was quiet while watching commercials for these blankets with sleeves and other particularly pointless things. "…Damn, this is a long commercial break," Athena dryly commented.

"Yep," agreed Abby from her post against the back wall; she had come in to watch. "That's the way this cookie crumbles."

"Wait, shh!"

"Finally," I muttered to myself as the break ended.

After the short beginning theme and the introduction for the top story, the same reporter from before faded onto the screen. "Good afternoon," she began, "though less could be said for the victims and witnesses of yesterday's epidemic that took place at a hillside public school in a small town east of the capital. The school day was reported to be normal until the students in a social studies class were mysteriously transported outside the building almost immediately before an explosion collapsed that half of the wing. What happened next could only be explained as 'an elaborate and well-researched crime.'"

The screen changed to a video of the ruined room beginning to be cleaned up and fixed. "A robot made with extreme technical talent dropped in from the sky after the explosion, its sole passenger being, according to witnesses, Doctor Robotnik, the main antagonist in the popular video game series, Sonic the Hedgehog.

"The hedgehog himself showed up soon after. The two put on a short performance directly from the games, resulting in the protagonist sending the doctor off. The hedgehog 'hero' talked with the students for a while, but 'fainted' at the touch of one of the girls. She appeared to have a decent knowledge and great love for the games, and she got her friends to get him inside one of the standing classrooms. It is now suspected that the two characters were kidnappers in disguise, because when the room was checked merely twenty minutes later, the hedgehog and eight girls were missing."

The scene changed to a view of the ruined shop from the top of the hill. Even more people were working behind caution tape with an ambulance off to the side. "Along with the missing girls, they are believed to have destroyed most of the jewelry shop at the bottom of the hill and killed three officials that showed up to investigate the scene." The video clips ended, and the newscaster from before came back on the screen. Pictures of the eight girls (all of them were humans) cycled through in the top left corner of the screen.

"If anyone sees any of these girls, call the Missing Persons Hotline or any of their families immediately," she said before another video clip took up the screen.

A woman with auburn hair and jade green eyes was unsteadily holding the microphone and looking toward the screen. Her eyes were red around the edges and her rapid blinking and shaky breathing also clued in that she had been crying. Sora drew in a sharp breath. "Mom," she whispered.

As if responding, the woman on the screen began with, "Cara, I-" She closed her eyes and started again, her voice getting calmer and more stable. "Cara, I know we've had our troubles, and you might not even want to come back if they're offering you a good deal, but I just want to tell you, if you're even watching this, that we love you, and I would like you to come home soon. I hope you and your friends are safe. If you want to stay, I would feel so much better if you'd call or email us. Just be safe. For me."

It went back to the original reporter woman, but the word 'MUTE' appeared in the corner of the screen and her words were silenced.

I glanced up at Athena, who had the remote, but it was coated in a faint blue glow. Turning my attention to Krystal, I was surprised to find the other white hedgehog standing next to her with his aura alit. _I wonder where Silver was._

He waited until his cyan aura died away before he said anything. "It's not good to linger on memories," he said to no one in particular, a kind of sternness in his voice as if he was angered. "What relationships and friends you had in the past as humans still exist, but you're all different now. There is a more important matter at hand now, and it needs to get done at any cost. The time in your lives for relaxing has ended, and the adventure of a lifetime has just started." He folded his arms over his chest and closed his eyes. "But just as everything has its end, everything has a beginning, and the time for loved ones will begin again. Until that time, though, your focus needs to be on the present, not the past."

Silence grew heavy in the air for a few moments, but it was broken when Krystal nodded in agreement and dropped to the ground, the sound muffled slightly by the rug. She walked off to the kitchen, and Hestia and Caillech got up to follow her a second later.

Sora's eyes were distant, and her expression was troubled, so to help cheer her up, I asked, "Hey, Sora, whatcha gonna call your Extreme Gear?"

She blinked a few times, out of her trance. "Huh?"

"Your board?"

She blinked again. "_My_ board?"

"Yeah, I guess." I shrugged, stood up, and went to pick up the blue Extreme Gear by the door. "I figured that since you ride so well, you would keep the board to use and practice with."

I went back over and dropped it in her hands. I grinned. "Right?"

She ran her gloved hand across the smooth metallic surface. "Well, I guess you're right, but I have to name it?"

"Not necessarily, but most people do. Mine's called the Blue Star."

"Blue Star?" she repeated with a laugh. "That's lame." I rolled my eyes as the others laughed at that remark. After a moment of thinking, Sora said, "I have an idea, though! I'll call my board the Azure Dolphin!"

"Wow. Dolphin," comment Athena with a smirk. "I'm just surprised that you used 'azure' instead of 'blue.' Nice." Without another word, she quickly snatched the board from Sora, put one of her silver claws to the side of it, and went to work.

No one said anything. Sora's mouth was open slightly, as if she started to object, but decided against it. We watched the tigress work for a minute or two; her ruby eyes watched her own progress, barely blinking. Her fingers were flying, dragging her claws along the surface with only small scratching and slicing sounds.

Hestia came up next to me to watch her friend work, a half-eaten pear in her hand. "So," the echidna said, breaking the silence, "she's at it again. Chances are she won't be done for another-"

"Finished!"

"I stand corrected."

Smiling, Athena flipped the board around to reveal an intricate carving of the words _'Azure Dolphin.' _The calligraphy was stunning, flowing from one letter to the next with twists, knots, figures, and tiny detailed flowers. "Whoa," was all I was able to say at the moment, but the other girls were only mildly impressed; she must do stuff like this often. Getting back on topic, I continued with, "But don't you think you could have messed some of the techno stuff up?"

"I'll fix it," Luna offered, taking the board. She laid her hand on the carving and stared it down, her hand coated in the usual creamy white. "Ta-da!" she said after a few seconds, handing the board back to the otter. I looked over her shoulder at the carving. It now looked as if it was almost completely carved into sapphires. Light sparkled from the deep blue indents in the board, giving the patterns in the writing even more detail and depth.

"Um, Luna?" asked Sora, pointing at the dot on the _i_. It was the only part of the carving that wasn't a dark sapphire blue; instead, it was the same lighter, navy-colored blue as the side of the board. "I think you missed a spot."

The raven grinned. "I thought you could keep your Chaos Emerald there, like how Krystal has hers in her ring."

Sora's eyes lightened and she got up and ran to the kitchen.

I looked over to where Silver was, leaning against the door with his arms crossed and his amber-gold eyes shut. "So," I began, wanting to break the silence, "where'd ya go before?"

He opened an eye to look at me. "I was out investigating the temple. Echidnan history is really an enigma. First they were a great civilization, the best of their time; then they completely disappeared."

"Disappeared?" I glanced to my right as Hestia strode over and made a triangle between the three of us. She bit into her pear and tossed the core in a trash can. "There was an empire of echidnas, and they just…disappeared?"

I nodded. "Yep. Here one day, gone the next. The Knuckles Tribe tried to claim the power of the Chaos and Master Emeralds four thousand years ago to win the war against the Nocturnus Clan. Chaos, the God of Destruction and the Guardian of the Chao, appeared and killed most of them off. The chief's daughter had to seal Chaos in the Master Emerald by using her own spirit as a lock."

"So that's what happened to them," Silver muttered, a bit shocked, "Those stories have been lost in my time, but the legacy of their existence never was."

Hestia was extremely interested, and her gold eyes were watching me intently, waiting. "What happened to the Nocturnus Clan?" she asked, slightly scared.

I gave her a smile. "They survived," I told her, and she sighed, relieved. "But they were trapped in a dimension called the Twilight Cage."

"I don't know much about the Nocturnus Tribe," Silver continued, "but the temple outside is the remainder of the grand city of the Knuckles Tribe. Many of the ruins and traps are preserved, their state as close to original as possible. It is truly amazing." He slowly shook his head and added, "Too bad there are no living echidnas in this world anymore."

"Ah, but that's where you're wrong, my little white friend," I told him, patting his back.

He shot a glare at me. "Little?"

I grinned. "I know this one knucklehead who happens to be the last echidna from the Knuckles Clan. He lives on Angel Island, which is the Emerald Shrine after it broke away from the planet and began floating in the air."

Silver glanced at me again, this time with a bit of excitement. "An echidna is still alive?"

"Hello?" Hestia asked, waving her hand between us. "I don't count as an echidna?"

"Well, like that, you do," I told her, "but you're not part of one of the tribes. The Nocturnus Echidnas are still in the Twilight Cage, and Knuckles is the last of the Knuckles Clan."

"Knuckles, huh?" Silver said, raising an eyebrow. "Pretty straightforward name."

"Yeah, but I don't know if you would like him." I shrugged. "When I met him, he tried to kill me; actually, that's what you tried to do to me, too!" A laugh escaped my lips. "You two would get along fine!"

"Sure. Sounds like it."

Hestia smirked at our discussion, and she turned around when Tails' head poked around the door to his workshop. "I'm almost finished!" he called to us. "I just need everyone to come down here for the finishing touches."

I dashed over next to him, and he disappeared down into the room. I held the door open as Abigail and the rest of the mobians followed him. Silver stopped to let me go in first and shut the door after us. The only light in the room came from the two windows and the skylight. What light was in the room revealed many shelves full of tools and trinkets, huge machines and apparatuses scattered over the floor, and a single table covered in blueprints. Many of the girls were staring around, awed, especially the human one; Abby immediately ran over to one of the incomplete metal things and looked it over, amazed. "Tsk. Girls…" I muttered, walking over to Tails, Athena, and Sora, who were idle by a familiar-looking blue plane.

Tails noticed and called everyone over to the plane. "I just finished," he began when the ten of us were around the fox kit, "the Tornado II! It is a biplane like the original, but it is stronger, faster, and more powerful than its predecessor. It even has the ability to transform into a jet and a battle walker when it is needed to. In order to get the extra power, though, it needs a Chaos Emerald as a fuel source."

Tails looked to Krystal. "If the plane doesn't spontaneously combust with the Chaos Energy, it will be better for traveling than the Tornado. It'll get you to all the Emeralds quicker, at the very least."

Krystal and Sora exchanged looks, and the hedgehog shook her head. "We should probably use yours, Sora," Krystal said, "just in case mine goes berserk again."

"Got it," agreed Sora, putting her hand over the side of her Extreme Gear, which she had under her arm. "It goes better with the paint job than yours, anyway."

"Gee, thanks."

"You know what I mean!" The otter smiled as a sparkling sapphire formed under her hand. She flipped it over to show Tails the blue Chaos Emerald that formed within her grasp. He smiled and took it from her, flipping open a compartment in the nose of the plane. He slid the gem into a pre-molded metal slot, and it fit perfectly with a small _click._ A vein of blue pulsed through the side of the Emerald, faintly flickering along the side of the Tornado II until it reached the engine. The engine revved up as the batteries filled with energy, rotating the propellers a few times in the process.

When the sound died down to a slow rumble, Tails was beaming with joy. I gave him a thumbs-up and winked. "Good job, little buddy!" I told him, smiling.

He grinned back and stepped away from the side of the biplane. "It's all ready to go," he told the others. "I'm going to stay here and work on some stuff."

"Oh, wait!" I heard Abigail exclaim before she ran back into the front room. A moment later, she came back out with her dark green backpack. "You'll need these more than I will," she told Krystal, handing her the bag.

Krystal looked at the bag in her hands for a few seconds. "You're not coming?" she asked when she lifted her head with a slightly saddened expression.

"I told you I wouldn't be. I'm going to stay here and help Tails with stuff you might need."

The sadness on the hedgehog's face disappeared. "You know, you're still human. You could go back home and stay out of all this craziness."

"And go back to boring normality?" She laughed. "No way! I want to help in some way, at least!" Abby laid her hands on Krystal's shoulders, which showed how much taller she was than her friend now. "Just make sure you all stay safe?"

They smiled at each other and hugged. Aero darted over to them and joined in on the group hug. "You didn't forget about the rest of us, Abby, right?" They laughed.

I glanced back over to the Tornado II, where Luna and Athena were already lying on the left wing, and Hestia was settling in the pilot's seat. I bounced on the balls of my feet; I was itching to get going already.

Sora wandered over to me, her board in one hand and her dress melting into the racing outfit she had on earlier. _That's kinda cool, _I thought, a bit surprised.

She seemed to notice my anxiety. "You seem ready to go," she observed. I nodded. "There's an ocean that we have to go over, though. I think you're afraid of water; am I right?"

"I'm not afraid of water," I told her defensively. "I just can't swim." She rolled her eyes, a small smile on her face.

"Then shouldn't you get on the plane, then?"

"I'll get on the Tornado II when I can't run anymore!" No way am I going to give up good land for running!

I heard the familiar sound of the back wall opening up and spun to face the open sky. The palm trees fell to the side, the runway was raised, and the blue biplane slowly began to leave the workshop. Caillech jumped onto the right wing as the Tornado II sped up for takeoff. Aero ran up next to me, waiting to run with the only other being that can reach Mach speeds.

Krystal broke away from Abigail and went over to Silver, who was still leaning against the doorframe. I snickered. _Didn't know he was so much like Shads. Maybe Shads is his great-grandpa._

They talked until Silver shook his head and walked with the girl out on the runway. Krystal grinned and ran to the edge as soon as the plane took to the skies. Her ivory fur turned cyan, and she jumped, hanging in the air for a second before she cut through the air under the plane. Silver stopped by us. He glared my way and told us, "Time to go." Without another word, he jumped up and flew after the others.

I raised a hand in farewell to the two in the workshop and took off, the ground quickly disappearing from under my feet. A wave of panic overcame me for a second as I thought I was falling into the ocean that Tails' place was next to, but a look down at solid earth soothed my fears. When my feet hit, the impact rippled through my body, but not nearly as bad as it would to most other creatures. In order to run as fast and far as I do, I have to be able to take the force of each step.

I bent my knees and leaned forward to run, and a blur of blue out of the corner of my eye shot by me, knocking my legs out from under me. I pushed off of the ground with my hands, flipping back up into a standing position. Brushing the dirt of my gloves, I spied Sora ahead in the woods, a rapidly fading trail of blue light coming from her board. She jumped and twisted in the air, and then she stopped in mid-fall, facing my direction. It took me a minute to remember the Ark of the Cosmos, which was alit around her left wrist. She smirked and shrugged at my excited expression. "Hey," she said loud enough for me to hear, "what can I say? Nice guys finish last!"

I stepped forward, immediately breaking into a run, with everything blurring past me. The otter did the same, breaking off through the air. Another figure raced next to me, her fur cloaked in black and purple. I grinned; the only thought on my mind was the eagerness I had to get on with our adventure and to win this race

_No one else can win; I'm the fastest thing alive!_

* * *

Krystal and the passengers aboard the Tornado II waved to the fox and girl on the hill behind them. The two on the hill acknowledged their departure, waving goodbye until they couldn't see them anymore. Tails brought his arm back down to his side and smiled at Abigail. "I'm glad that you're staying to help," he told her. "It's good to know that some people still care about science and mechanics."

She nodded. "Trust me, where I come from, it's apparently cool to not like science, math, or academics of any sort."

"Popularity is about not liking intellectual knowledge?" He wrinkled his nose in disgust. "How dumb is that?"

"I know! Kids these days…"

"Aren't you a kid?"

Abigail didn't respond to that, a shadow of a smile on her face.

"Well," Tails continued, walking to the door, "I have a spare bedroom for you, unless you're like Sonic and like sleeping outside, but that can be for later. Can you help me get connected to the Internet here?"

"Sure."

They walked through the door to the front room, where Tails un-muted the television and continued to a storage closet in the back. Abby, though, stopped next to a large monitor and a slim computer.

She looked down at her fist, which she open to reveal a small blue memory card gripped between her first finger and her thumb. She glanced back up at the monitor. After a minute of thought, she tapped the screen to bring it to life. It quickly connected to the wireless network router she had in her gold watch. She typed in the web address and held her finger over the 'Enter' key. She turned her head away, her dirty blond hair falling over her left eye as she rethought her idea. Closing her eyes, she muttered, "I'm sure they won't mind earning a few fans on YouTube," and her finger fell on the button, bringing her to the site as she slipped the memory card into the side of the computer.

Behind her, the news reporter was showing the state an aerial photo of a huge landmass surrounded by water. "One of our next top stories," she said, "is about the appearance of an island, supposedly the lost city of Atlantis, suspended above the middle of the Atlantic Ocean by an unknown force. All you need to know, when it happens. This is your news now."

**Ugh, another long wait. I've been working on this all month, but I've never had a good block of time to just sit down and write. To add to this, the part with the news report had me stuck for a week. At least it's a long chapter after a month; not a very progressive chapter, but a long one to read.**

**I actually found this chapter kinda overly-long and a bit boring. This was supposed to be the end of the last chapter, but, like last time, I was short on time. I give myself a one month deadline for each chapter. But, yeah, this isn't one of my favorite chapters. Oh well…**

**Oh, what are my reasons this time? I've had my week-long trip with my friends, a test prep book that I still haven't finished, an algebra packet that I still haven't finished, a game on SA1 that I took the time to play and beat, an Internet connection problem, and, of course, that time every day where I read someone else's work for a while. For the next month, I have a Tae Kwon Do test, that math packet, that test prep book that I have to work through, trying to get a copy of Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity (that shouldn't be as hard as SA1 or 2), and our family vacation week. So, yeah, that's what's up with me.**

**You see that little button on the bottom of the page? He's getting lonely and dusty without your support and feedback. All it takes to help is one little click and a few words. Together, we can make a difference. Please, do it for the children…**

**~Silvershadow471**


	13. Travel and Talk

I watched the ground give way to hundreds of miles of ocean, cleanly vanishing beneath the waves. Spinning around, I watched the remaining coastline grow smaller as I flew away. Sonic and Aero appeared on the edge of the sand, merely small spots of color on the pale earth from my position. They stood there for a few seconds, waiting to get picked up, and Sonic turned around, probably cursing for being left behind. A third, light blue figure came into view, stopping between the others. Merely a moment later, Sora grabbed their wrists, jumped off her Extreme Gear, Azure Dolphin, and darted toward us as soon as Aero grabbed her board, the ring on her arm bright and glowing neon blue. I saw the shockwave ripple through the air as they shot over the water, and I heard and felt it a second later.

Sora stopped above the plane in her racing clothes with a sickening halt. She let go of Sonic a little early, almost throwing him off the front of the wing. Ever so quick, he gripped the edge as his legs went over, swinging up on the other side. As Aero dropped on the other wing, I could hear the hedgehog say, "Yeah, thanks. The hero guy gets no respect here. No respect."

I smiled and flipped back around. After a little while, though, the blue ocean surface and the clear blue sky got a bit boring to watch. I noticed a lighter-colored figure to my left and changed my course to come up next to him.

Silver was lazily drifting through the air, pondering something with a distant look in his golden-amber eyes. I let the sound of the Tornado II cover the silence for a minute. "Hi," I finally said, beginning a conversation I had rehearsed with myself before.

"Hello."

I waited again for him to say something else, but he kept quiet and I continued. "Can I ask you something?"

He glanced over to me, giving me his attention and mutely allowing me to go ahead with the question that I couldn't answer myself.

I hesitated. "…Why do we look so alike?"

He was caught off-guard by this. Silver turned his head to study my expression, delaying his response another few moments.

When it came, it wasn't one I wanted to hear. "I don't know, really."

"What do you mean you don't know?" The forcefulness in my voice startled the both of us. I sighed and repeated, quieter, "You don't know? Silver, you know something. When we first met this morning, you mistook me for someone else. In order to do that, you have to know someone that looks like me."

I took his hand and held it between mine. He turned away to avoid my stare. "Not to mention the fact that we're both psychic, our gloves and auras are the same, and we can both use Chaos Energy."

He looked back at me, slight amusement in his eyes. "I can use-?"

"Yes, you can," I told him hurriedly. Before continuing, I stopped myself and sighed. "I'm sorry; you didn't know that yet. It's just…" I squeezed his hand before letting him pull it away. "Can you give me answers?"

I put on my best 'desperate' face as he looked between me and his hand for a few moments. His thinking subconsciously decreased his speed until he was almost at a standstill. I stayed next to him, making sure we kept flying so we didn't fall too far behind. I closed my eyes, enjoying the wind and the sunshine on the back of my head with a small, patient smile on my face. _The drama-causing-pity act works every time._

"This is the past, isn't it?"

While it was kind of sudden and unexpected, I nodded.

"And I already know this is a different world than mine," he continued, warming up on the topic. "I do know someone that's similar to you, but she's in my time. She…doesn't exist here." He paused, leaving an awkward feeling in the air. "But one of my answers is probably the most realistic: you're my ancestor."

"Ancestor?" I sounded the word out slowly, trying to process the thought. A mere second later, my eyes snapped open, my jaw slacked, and I stared at Silver with a new view on him while the shadow of an amused grin crossed his face.

I couldn't speak. Part of my mind screamed disbelievingly and a little too dramatically, _I'm Silver's _ancestor_? How is that possible? I'm _eleven_ and he's fourteen!_

The other part calmed down and thought, _…Duh. Why didn't I think of that?_

Silver went on, pretending to be oblivious to my shock. "That would mean that _you_ don't look like _me_; _I_ look like _you._"

I took a deep breath. "That's possible, alright," I told him, "and I know I'm being too dramatic over this, but I'm only eleven. I won't have an interest in a boyfriend for another three years or so, not to mention marriage." I snickered. "Especially as a mobian. That would just be weird."

He only smiled when I said _marriage_. "Yeah…"

_Blaze, probably,_ I thought, rolling my eyes with a smirk.

We flew along for a while, letting the subject drop. After what could have been three or thirty minutes, I began to ask myself, _How much more traveling are we going to be doing?_

I sensed a nervous tremble in the air, and immediately after, Silver asked, "Krystal?"

"Hm?"

His eyes drifted over to me, filled with bits of worry. "How far in the past _are_ we? Or _am I,_ rather? Ten years? Twenty-five?"

I don't know why, but I laughed, scaring Silver. "Oh, you'll hate the answer, then."

His eyes widened, and he tried again. "A hundred years?"

"Try two hundred years," I said, flipping onto my back.

"Two hundred-!" he repeated, breaking his concentration. His aura paled, leaving him susceptible to gravity. The hedgehog shook it off pretty quickly, though, and caught himself before falling too far. "Two hundred years," he muttered again. "The guy Blaze and I met said that we'd have to go back in time to prevent our damned future, but I didn't think he meant _this_ far back!"

He ran his fingers through his quills and gripped his head. "And Blaze… I don't even know what happened to Blaze. She didn't come here with me; she's not with that guy anymore-"

"His name's Mephiles," I interrupted.

"Mephiles?"

"Mephiles is the demonic mind and magic of the sun god, Solaris, given form." I yawned and blinked a few times before crossing my arms over my chest. "I believe his name is a twist on Mephistopheles, one of the princes of Hell."

Silver seemed to think about the 'prince of Hell' part. "So," he asked slowly after a moment, "I'm guessing we shouldn't trust him?"

"Oh, he be even worse than Iblis, laddie!" I grinned at my Irish accent, trying to get rid of all the drama from the drama-causing-pity act.

He closed his eyes and sighed at this. "You seem to know all about what was going to happen to Blaze and I."

"Yeah, I guess you could say that." I leaned my head back, shutting my eyes and awaiting what came next.

"…What's my story?"

A smile crossed my face as I let my gamer self come out. _I always knew it would be good for me to know about this stuff,_ I thought before explaining to Silver about the events of his story in the game: of Soleanna, who Iblis and Mephiles are, how the latter tricks Blaze and Silver into helping him kill Sonic in the past, who Sonic is, how Silver actually _does_ try to kill Sonic, how Silver needs some persuasion from Blaze to go back to chasing the blue hedgehog, how Shadow _does_ kick Silver in the head, and everything up until the part where Blaze saves Crisis City with her life.

"Blaze had her world's best interest at heart, so if you weren't going to send her and Iblis away, she had to-"

"Krystal!"

I glanced up at Silver, who shook his head, trying to hide unshed tears, and looked back at the Tornado II. I lifted my head, squinting against the sun's glare as I tried to make out who the waving figure on the plane was. I thought it was Luna, but I wasn't really sure. "Um, I should-" I started, turning to go back.

"Sure. Thanks for the…" He paused, looking away awkwardly while searching for the word. "The information. It was…enriching."

"Sure thing." I straightened out, stretching for a second before flying back to the biplane. Luna greeted me and helped me remain stable on the plane wing. Hestia was in the seat, staying quiet, but intently listening to whatever they were discussing. Caillech was lying with her hair flying off the back of the wing, braiding and twisting one piece into an intricate pattern. Sora and Aero were also sitting on the wing. They were watching Athena, who was sharpening the long, narrow blade of an onyx-hilted sword with her silver claws. Her maroon eyes were staring at Sonic. The sole male on the plane, however, was up against the tail, rubbing his upper arm and returning the tigress' gaze with one of amusement and merriment.

When I dropped down onto the wing, Athena's ear twitched. "Ah, that would be your cue to go," she said to him, setting her sword down as she stood.

Sonic held his hands up, a small smile on his face. "Hey now, can't I throw my opinions in for her to hear?"

"No." She grabbed his wrist, yanking him until he was dangling over the side of the plane. "Hey Silver!" she called down. "Catch!"

She let go, sitting back down without a backwards glance. Sonic yelped in surprised, quickly disappearing from view. Leaning over the edge, I saw him fall, his cobalt color almost indistinguishable from the blue of the ocean. His arms flailed a bit, but soon he was caught in a lighter blue, haloing his body. He looked over at Silver, who was almost level with him and holding his luminescent hand out.

I sighed and turned back to the group. "Okay, what was that for?" I asked. "You know Sonic can't swim."

Athena gripped the hilt of her sword and laid it across her knees. She took a deep breath and ran her palm over the blade. "Why are we here?" she asked suddenly, ignoring my question.

My face went blank. _Huh?_ I glanced around the circle (or circle-like figure; whichever), but no one else had an answer. Apparently Athena didn't share her thoughts with anyone beforehand.

The tigress waited a minute before rephrasing the question. "I mean, why did we just decide to leave everything behind, turn into animals, and go on one of the most cliché missions ever at the word of a video game character?"

Her unemotional glare fell on me for the last part, and I opened my mouth to answer, but stopped. I couldn't think of an answer to that question. _Why _did_ we agree to this so quickly?_

I closed my mouth, and she continued. "We didn't even ask the most obvious question. How did we know this Sonic guy was the real deal?"

"Well," Caillech said, adding another voice to the generally one-sided discussion, "you just dropped him off a plane and he was saved by a telekinetic hedgehog. Is that real enough for you?"

"But we didn't know that then." Her hand still ran down the length of the sword, again and again. "What if that news report was right, and we were kidnapped and killed?"

Sora visibly flinched, and Aero added, "But we weren't."

"Athena does have a point, though," I said, finally finding a suitable thing to say. "I don't know about the rest of you, but usually I would ask more questions before deciding."

"Maybe you were so quick because your fictional hero was proved to be real and wanted to be with you," Aero suggested with a teasing smirk.

I stuck my tongue out and soft giggles rang through the air. "No," Luna remarked, "That's not it, and Krystal knows it."

"Nope, that wasn't it." I stopped and flashed a triumphant grin, but it faded to a confused look. "Wha'd I know?"

"You asked why I wasn't sounding excited after, uh, Lily became Athena, remember?" Her eyes lightened as I nodded in agreement. "I wasn't unexcited; I was unsure. I thought I could…_feel_ something or…someone."

It was quiet for a moment, save for the common noises from the plane we were on and the wind. Hestia asked, "And what are you suggesting?"

She looked away, giving yet another conversation a dramatic feel. "I'm suggesting that someone could have influenced our choice, making us agree to this."

"But no one was there!" Sora protested.

"No one that we know of."

"That's what I want to talk about," Athena began again. "I don't know if we really should be going along with this."

Aero sighed and said, "Well, we're already here with two magic rocks, so let's get the others and-"

"But that's exactly what I'm talking about!" she said quickly, pausing with her hand against the onyx hilt. "We didn't ask questions and we agreed to this too quickly. We're still not asking any questions and just going with it. Why didn't we think about this? Why didn't we see the flaws in our basic plan? If we travel across the world on a plane, we'll need to stop for fuel."

"Uh," I began, "the-"

"Chaos Emerald, I know. How do we know if it's even real or not, though?" This time, Caillech, Luna, and I opened our mouths to speak, but she held up her black-clad hand. "It's just a possibility. If we don't need to stop for fuel, we'll have to stop for food. Soon, we'll run out of money or someone will see us. Will we ever get to go back home, as Lily and Cara and their friends? What about this whole world? Are we even mobians? Is that prophecy even real?" She stopped and looked at each of us in turn, glancing at Sora before adding in a low whisper, "Will we get killed?"

Dark realization settled over me. We could _die_ out there, and I didn't even give it a thought before.

…_Why?_

I blinked. Maybe someone had influenced our decision to go along with this, but who? How? _Why?_

"But," I started, "all this _is_ real. What if we were meant to do this?" I held out my hands, flaring up my aura. "Since we got this far with the unbelievable, I think fate is the least we could put our trust in."

"But this could all be a trick!"

Shocked, I killed my aura and let my arms fall. Athena averted her gaze for a few seconds before continuing: "This plane and this ocean could be a set. Sonic, Tails, and Silver could just be actors; Abigail could have been an actress, too. Everything since yesterday could have been set up!"

"But we're different species', and two feet shorter," Aero put in. "I mean, how can someone fake that? Heck, a giant robot destroyed my house!"

"Again, this could all be a set based on places we know of, only bigger." She ran her silver claw along the blade of her sword once more. "We could just be wearing costumes and a whole lot of make up."

Caillech snickered. "Do you know how much money would be invested in that plan, just to prank us?"

"And what about our families?" asked Sora, her eyes empty, save for a trace of sadness. "Wouldn't they be in on this if it was a prank? …And what about our powers? You can't say they aren't real."

Everything seemed to go quiet as we watched the tigress for her answer. Surprisingly, she didn't say anything right away; she dropped her ruby-colored eyes to her sword as she tapped the center of the hilt with her claw. "Hypnosis," she finally stated, still locking her gaze with the sword.

No one said anything. I shook my head, trying to sort out the many possibilities we talked about. It seemed like too much to think about at one time. "That _could_ be a reason why we have inhuman powers," I said, wanting the discussion to end.

Luna finished for me: "But you know it isn't it."

Then Athena surprised me even more: she smiled. "Yes, I do know they are real," she said, "and I really want them to be real. I'm just saying…what if this _isn't _what it seems, and we wind up in more trouble?

"…I'm just not sure."

Aero broke out into a fit of giggles. Athena glared at the canine, and Aero said, "I never thought that you would say that! But," she added, calming down, "You don't need to worry. If anyone attacked me, I could be miles away before they blink. And you, Athena, Goddess of War, now have the ability to put a knife in someone's throat if they even twitch."

Athena grinned mischievously, her white fangs evident. I smiled, glad her doubts were settled for a while. "Well," Hestia said, "I think this conversation has just about come to a close."

I nodded. "Yup; let's just see how we do if we go along with this, and if we're in mortal danger, I can always warp us home. You made your point, Athena; we should ask more questions and be more cautious about this." Everyone muttered in agreement, and I laughed. "Okay then; in the words of Green Day, 'Sanitation, expiration date-'"

Aero caught on and joined in with me, yelling, "'Question everything!'" Everyone knew how the ending went, and we all finished the line, smiles on our faces and laughter in our loud voices:

"'Or shut up and be a victim of authority!"

I joined in with the laughs and giggles. I was happy that all the drama went away, but she did have a point: we agreed to collect gems that I always thought weren't real yesterday without thinking it over.

The one big question, _why_, still had me confused, but I pushed it off for another time as the noise died away. Athena dragged her hand over the blade of her sword, conjuring (or whatever she was doing) up a scabbard for it as a tanned material hid the silver sheen from view. She cupped her hand and pulled it away from the weapon, a smoky mist trailing it through the air. It solidified into a leather-looking strap, and she slung the sword on her back, the onyx hilt visible from above her left shoulder. "So…" she started, letting the word trail off as her ruby eyes met mine.

When she didn't finish, I asked, "So?"

She remained completely still, her head slightly cocked. A moment passed, and she brought her fist down onto the wing next to her. I herd a yelp of surprise, and then one of pain when Athena swung her foot under the wing. I leaned over, a smirk on my face. Sonic was hanging onto the plane with one hand, flicking his other wrist. I guessed that Athena must have hit it, and I told him, "She's not the one to annoy."

He gave me a sheepish grin. "Yeah." Another bang sounded, and Sonic had to grip the edge with both hands to keep from plummeting down. "She seems better than Amy, though."

"Eh, that's debatable." I saw Athena grip a knife out of the corner of my eye (maybe she's worse than Amy, since the hedgehog's hammers aren't sharp and pointy) and added, "You should let go."

He glanced down in uncertainty, but let himself fall a second later, eagle-spread.

I sat back up. "What was that for?" I asked again, addressing the innocent-looking tigress.

Athena shrugged. "Guys shouldn't listen in on girls chatting. Besides…" Her eyes lit up, and I could tell this was going to be her favorite kind of discussion: an awkward one. "What's up with you and Silver?"

"What?" I couldn't hide the surprise and embarrassment in my voice.

Everyone else giggled. "Yeah, didn't you use to say, 'I always liked Silver' and 'Silver's my favorite'?" Aero teased.

"As a video game character, yes!" I could feel my ears grow hot, and I thought back to Silver saying I could be his ancestor. "As a person, no!"

The wolf rolled her eyes. "Didn't we just talk about how Silver and Sonic are actually _real?_ Of course he's a person."

"No, he's not a person," Sora commented sarcastically. "He's a hedgehog. Duh."

"Racist!"

I had to crack a smile at that. "I like his character," I admitted, "but we only actually met him this morning. I don't love him or anything. We're just…similar."

Aero grinned. "You mean being grumpy, antisocial-" She stopped with a groan when Sora elbowed her in the ribs. "I mean, you're not like that! Not at all!"

"Well, he seems to only talk to you," Caillech pointed out.

"Yeah," agreed Luna. "I've played the game he's in, and he's not shy or anything."

I sighed, my head about ready to explode with information. "It's not that I'm the only one he talks to; it's more like, I'm the only one he _trusts._ Maybe it's because we look alike, but he seems less tense around me. Don't ask anymore questions, too, because I don't know." I held up my hands, signaling that I was done talking.

Everyone was quiet again, until Hestia sighed. "Uh, guys? Are we supposed to be over Europe yet?" she asked, watching something ahead.

"No. Why?"

She blinked. "Didn't think so."

Her tone had me curious. I glanced ahead of us and gasped.

Dark green tree tops were only yards below us. The jungle-like vegetation covered the land below us and for miles around. The land was generally circular, and mostly covered in one or two shades of green, save for a few blue patches of water. Towards the center, though, was a small clearing. From our height, I just saw circular rings of green and gray. In the center, though…

A flash of bright violet-white struck my eyes as a shock surged through my hand. I gasped through my teeth. _This ring is going to be the death of me,_ I thought. _I just had to take the painful Chaos Emerald._

As I blinked away the black spots, the other girls on the plane were talking, surprised about something, but I couldn't make out what they were saying. I looked back down at the center of the shrine and wasn't ready for the bright green figure that appeared, sitting in the middle. The purple Chaos Emerald on my finger seemed to lighten with a tint of green as I looked at the shrine. My suspicions were confirmed, and I wasn't sure if I should be glad or afraid.

"Look at that," I heard Caillech say. "It looks like a temple of some sort."

"That jungle is amazing," Hestia commented, awed. "Where are we, anyway?"

"I didn't know there were any islands in this part of the ocean," said Luna

"There aren't," I told them. A few confused faces turned my way. "It's not _in_ the ocean; it's _over_ it. This is Angel Island, the floating island home of the Master Emerald."

"Ugh, don't tell me: this is _another_ game-thing and there's _another _one of these Emeralds, right?" Athena asked, but with mock annoyance or not, I couldn't tell. "Do we have to go looking for this one, too?"

I laughed. "No; it doesn't get lost. It's twenty times larger, and the Guardian does a good job at protecting it."

"The Guardian… That's Knuckles the Echidna," Luna confirmed.

"Uh-huh."

Aero looked back down at the island. "Should we land?"

"Nah." I wasn't too excited about meeting the echidna, and I wanted to get to Europe by sunset. "He'd probably pummel us, anyway."

Luna smiled. "Yeah. You should tell Abigail and Tails about it, though."

I didn't answer. Sitting down against the tail of the plane, I rested my arm on my knee and pushed one of the buttons on my watch.

I only had to wait a few seconds before an image of Tails blinked onto the small screen. "Hello, Krystal."

"Tails? Where's Abby?"

"She went on a walk." He gave me a sheepish grin. "And I wanted to see how this watch works."

"Okay then. Do you remember who Knuckles is?" I asked, not sure if the echidna was one of the ones he knew of.

The kit's face brightened. "Knuckles? Yeah. Did you find him?"

"We're flying over Angel Island right now, but we're not going to land. I don't think we have the time, but if you want to, you can pay him a visit for us."

Tails fiddled with the controls on Abby's watch for a moment. "…Okay, I might be able to fly out tomorrow. Thanks for the update."

"No problem."

"I'll tell Abigail you said hi. Call again when you find the third Emerald, too!" he added, waving goodbye.

"Can do. Bye." I ended the call, rested my head against the tail, and closed my eyes. I sighed, tired of traveling and wanting to get there already, and drifted off to sleep.

* * *

Knuckles the Echidna stood on the edge of the jungle, arms crossed as he watched the blue airplane flying above his island. The wind picked up, and his dreadlock-like quills shifted slightly as he watched the plane with violet eyes.

_That looks like one of Tails' planes,_ he thought, his face deprived of emotion. _I think I see the twin tails on the side._ His eyes flickered downward to the ocean, visible beyond the edge of the island. _This isn't the same ocean I was over yesterday, though. Almost as if we were teleported to a new world or dimension, if Tails is here, too._

Knuckles snapped out of his trance when he saw a streak of blue pass between him and the cliff, a bang soon following. It doubled back on itself a second later, stopping to reveal a grinning blue hedgehog standing on the green ground. "Hiya, Knux!" he greeted with a quick wave.

The echidna frowned, but before he could say anything, a silver-blue hedgehog flew—he actually _flew_—by, shouting, "Coming, hedgehog?"

"Hey! Wait up, Silver!" the blue hedgehog yelled back. He winked at Knuckles. "Catch ya later, Knucklehead!" Then he sped off, yelling, "Silver! Come on, wait!"

"Well, run faster, Sonic!"

Knuckles blinked, staring after them as the two bluish hedgehogs took to the air and followed the plane.

_Silver? Sonic?_

…_Who were they?_

**Hey guys! I'm back! Happy 10/10/10! Don't kill me! I know it's a late chapter (and a pretty lame one to make you wait for, too), but I've been…um, I was doing… Okay, I was being lazy. I've been spending my free time reading fanfics instead of writing them. I have gotten involved with the Avatar: The Last Airbender and Danny Phantom fandoms, though!**

…**I know, not a good enough excuse.**

**Anyway, I always go back and reread my stories, including this one, so if I have anything that I need to improve or redo in any of the previous chapters, just tell me in a review. I'll rewrite the first few chapter of this after it's done, too.**

**Speaking of rewrite, I thought of a new summary for this fic. Tell me which one you think is better, though:**

**First one-**

**I'm just a normal middle schooler until my laptop electrocutes me, we're kicked out of our classroom, and Eggman destroys half of my school. I think nothing else can go wrong. Am I right? Ha ha! Ha...**

**Second one-**

**A clichéd prophecy plotline, three 'fictional' hedgehogs, six incredibly different girls, and me. This is my account on the adventure my friends and I get stuck in, and how I learned that fantasies can be a real kick in the a*$**

**Okay, I'm really looking for feedback and tips on how to improve my writing! Please leave a review and tell me what you think! Or if you just want to tell me to "hurry up and write the damn chapter!" That's called encouragement, kids! **

**~Silvershadow471**


	14. Distorted Images

_I bolted up, sweat coating my face and leaving a salty taste in my mouth. I was hyperventilating and afraid. When I began to feel light-headed, I snapped out of my state of fear and concentrated on slowing my breathing._

_I closed my eyes. _I had the worst nightmare ever,_ I thought to myself. I tried to remember what it was about, but I drew a blank. All I could remember was fear and pain. Fear and pain from what?_

_I tried to think back for another minute before giving up and looking around. The landscape looked like a thinned-out forest. The colors, however, were all mixed up; the ground was a rich, deep purple, going well with the emerald green of the sky. All the trees, bushes, rocks, and water, though, were black, as it they were just silhouettes._

Maybe this is still a dream. _I leaned back on my arms to try spot the sun in the sky, but I only felt empty air. A yelp escaped me as I fell backwards. It was only about a foot drop, but I landed on something that didn't feel like solid rock or liquid water. It was kind of in the middle, like a trampoline or Jell-O. It looked like a lake, only with black water and purple and black shores._

_I couldn't find the platform I was just sitting on._

_I thought it was all a dream, so I didn't worry about it too much. I glanced around for a little while longer, wondering whether I should get up or not, when I saw a patch of the green sky between two black trees. I watched it for a while. The green seemed to be coming closer…_

"_Hey!" I yelled as the color suddenly flared up, burning my eyes from looking at it. The green color grew brighter until it turned white, becoming too much for me. I leaned back and turned my already-shut eyes away, shielding my face with my arms. "Turn down the lights, will ya?"_

_After a few seconds, the brightness of the color faded away, slowly dying down to its normal(ish) emerald. _Why,_ I thought,_ is it that bright light hurts to look at and touch, and yet darkness is the evil one?

_I opened my eyes and blinked before taking a chance at looking back through my arms. I saw the trees for only a second before I noticed my arms._

_My _tan_ arms._

_With _human skin.

_I gasped as I brought my arms down, stunned. Yep, they were human limbs. I thought I had changed back to my human form, but I still had my white gloves on. They still had the cyan insignia on them. I still had my cyan bracelets and gold rings on._

_Startled, I flipped around until I was on my gloved hands and knees (also human-like and covered with dark blue fabric), staring at my full-colored, mirror-like reflection in the viscous black water. I was human, alright, but only _a _human; I didn't recognize my reflection at all. Sure, I had my long hair and clear eyes. I had earrings on, like usual, a loose long-sleeved shirt, and a necklace. Like the rest of this distorted world, though, the colors were all wrong. My shirt was half white and half cyan, and my silver necklace was replaced with a translucent amethyst möbius_ _strip on a silver chain. Instead of my usual gold earrings, I had a silver four-pointed star stud in one ear and a black metal dragon wrapped around the other. I reached up and rubbed my finger over its spiked mane._

_While different apparel wasn't really too surprising, I was gawking at my face. My hair, instead of being burgundy-brown, was stark white, and my bangs were streaked with blue. And my eyes were normally green as a human, but they were the same blue as they were when I was a hedgehog. I stared at my reflection for a few more moments, frozen in place from the realization that I was probably some kind of human/mobian hybrid now._

_Without noticing it, my aura blinked to life around me. It was still the same shade of blue, and it still caused my gloves to glow where they were patterned, but I also found out that the eyes of my dragon earring lit up ominously; so did my own eyes._

_I cried out in shock and scrambled backwards from the spot on the lake, trying to get away from the twisted version of myself. My aura darkened protectively, and my now-white hair fanned out and crackled behind me. I was almost hyperventilating again as I stared at the blank surface of the black water._

"_Startling, isn't it?"_

_My head whipped around, trying to find who had spoken. No one was in sight._

"_You've been using Chaos Energy."_

_It was a statement, I noticed, not a question. "Yeah," I replied slowly, still scanning the area for movement. "What's it to you?"_

"_Because of that increased Chaos in your body," he (it sounded like a 'he') continued, "your forms have merged. Your physical form has become even more powerful."_

_My eyes stopped on the trees I was looking at before. I thought the voice was coming from that general area. It made sense, at least: someone usually pops out from a bright light in dreams._

"_You're wise. You're witty. You're beautiful. You're powerful, and you can conquer."_

_I grinned against better judgment. "I would take that as a compliment, but now you sound kind of suspicious, like you want something from me."_

"_I don't want anything; you want everything."_

"_Get to the point, will ya?"_

_I wanted to make him frustrated with me, but it didn't work. "You know everything has a purpose," he told me._

_I hesitated, but I nodded. I did think everything had its purpose, after all._

"_Names have power, correct?"_

_I slowly nodded again. "Sure…"_

_I could hear the smugness in his voice. "You aren't called a Conqueror without being destined to be tasked with conquering._

"_Your power should be feared throughout the world. If your beauty doesn't get you to be worshiped, your force would. You could rule armies, driving them forward for your enjoyment. When their psyche is broken, their opinions will falter, becoming at your mercy. Every person and animal is waiting to be molded by you."_

"_Whatever it is you want, I'm not helping you with it." Even as I said that, I reached up to feel my dragon ear cuff, the symbol of the Emperor in China. The dragon was also the sign of power in many places._

_I couldn't help keeping what he said in mind._

"_It's not about what I want. I am telling you your future." He paused. "That dragon is molded from obsidian and kyanite, fused with auric energy. Make sure it doesn't break, because it is your second self. If one loses the other, they both perish."_

_As soon as he finished, everything disappeared. It was like the sun went out on the place, except there was no sun in the first place. I could still feel the ground under me, but the rest was jet black. I blinked and, when nothing changed, turned around, trying to find the source of the now-really-annoying voice._

"_Remember that, Krystal."_

_Pain shot through my stomach, as if it was hit with an arrow._

"_You will always be Krystal, in any form."_

_I screamed and wrapped my arms around my midsection, falling to my knees. Tears clouded my vision; not like there was anything to see._

"_Crystals always grow in the most amazing patterns."_

_I noticed a speck of red fall from my fingers and stop on the ground between my legs, the only color in the world. I cried out in anguish, doubling over as a flame ignited behind the pain, only making it much worse._

"_Without the proper conditions, they form differently, for better and for worse."_

_The drop of scarlet stained the ground, slowly spreading out in a wide circle, away from my pitiful being. The ground was changing, from endless black to a torturous ebony and ruby. Eventually the bold colors grew fuzzy, almost unnoticeable to my pain-shocked senses._

"_No matter the beginning, everything is destined to end."_

_I hung my head, my white hair covering the black sky. The strength to hold on was lost when I moaned and closed my eyes, dropping me into the shadows of unconsciousness as I just barely heard his last echoing whisper._

"_Every crystal is destined to break."_

* * *

"Krystal!"

I shot up, gasping for breath as if I was underwater for five minutes. I shut my eyes again to stop the world from spinning and pressed my hand against my forehead. Rubbing my head, I felt my fingers going through three of my quills and sighed in relief.

A hand fell on my shoulder, and I looked up at Caillech's leaf green eyes. "Are you okay?" she asked, concern and worry etched on her face. "You were sweating when we got over Europe and whimpering when we landed."

I blinked. I was? I rubbed my arms as if I was cold, feeling my gloves slide over the coat of moisture on my fur.

"And the patterns on your gloves were maroon. I thought your hands were bleeding."

Red gloves? Weren't my gloves blue? They were red when…the Chaos Emerald…

I glanced at my ring on my left hand, which seemed to pulse slightly as I watched it. My gloves were still their spotless white with blue circles, but I could believe that they weren't before. "Damn Emerald," I muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing." I laughed, rubbing the back of my hand while thinking back to the messed-up landscape I was just in. "I just had the weirdest dream."

I had a clear picture of the green sky and purple and black ground. As if I walked into fog, though, the image immediately blurred and merged the colors, making it incomprehensible. Alarmed, I tried to think of my shocking humanoid form in the water, but as I tried to remember, it dissipated.

"It was…" I tried to tell the cat, but I could barely remember even dreaming anymore. "I remember I was human, with white hair and… Well, the colors were all…different, with…a sky and…grass." Frustrated, I wrinkled my nose, my head beginning to ache as I put together fading wisps of the memory. "All I can remember now is a dragon…made of Jell-O, I think…"

Caillech grinned. "Alright then. It probably wasn't anything important. I mean, there are skies and grass in the real world to see."

"Heh, yeah." All my annoyance at myself seemed to go away. I couldn't recall even having a dream, nightmare or not.

_It probably wasn't anything important,_ I thought as I started to put the idea aside and look around. I was still on the Tornado II, but it had landed. Sonic and the others were standing or lying around, stretching after the long flight. The sun had just set, leaving a thin band of red under the dark starry sky. The bright lights of a city stood out a few miles away.

"We're in the Netherlands?" I asked.

"We're in the Netherlands."

I grinned, now wide awake. "Time for some Emerald hunting."

**Six day update! Yeah! Well, to make up for the last chapter, which took over two months. :)**

**Time for Emerald hunting indeed! Does anyone live in the Netherlands? Or know someone from the Netherlands that could give me some descriptions of popular places? Good places? Send me a message for help; I haven't been to Europe, but I wanted to put an Emerald in at least one of the countries. The reason I picked that country, though: tulips and the greenery. Can you guess which Emerald it'll be? :)**

**Oh, and guess what? Our trip (rescheduled due to the volcano last April) to the Netherlands in March has been canceled **_**yet again**_** because of the "increased amount of terrorists in Europe" that make parents "nervous about the safety of the children" or something. Don't know if that's true or not, but that just sucks. :P**

**Anyway, I'll be busy with things that I won't get done until January, so…nothing much else to say… :/**

**What, only two reviews last chapter? Please tell me I'm not that bad! :)**

_**Edit: This story'll be on hiatus for a little while. By a little while, I might mean a few months. I'm so busy now. If you want to know what I'm doing, I update my profile every week or so with news toward the top. So that'll be what I'm working on for the week. Thanks, and sorry!**_

**~Silvershadow471**


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